SEIZING RAILROADS AND COAL MINES.
This system of abject slavery was in full force when the railroads ousted many of the small operators, and largely by pressure of power took possession of the mines. In vain did the miners' unions implore the railroad magnates for redress of some kind. The magnates abruptly refused, and went on extending and intrenching their authority. The Vanderbilts manipulated themselves into being important factors in the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, and in the Delaware, Lackawana and Western Railroad, which had deviously obtained title to some of the richest coal deposits in Wyoming County, and they also became prominent in the directing of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
The most important coal-owning railroad, however, which they and other magnates coveted was the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. At least one-half of the anthracite coal supply of Pennsylvania was owned or controlled by this railroad. The ownership of the Reading Railroad, with its subordinate lines, was the pivotal requisite towards getting a complete monopoly of the anthracite coal deposits. William H. Vanderbilt had acquired an interest in it years before, but the actual controlling ownership at this time was held by a group of Philadelphia capitalists of the second rank with their three hundred thousand shares.
Unfortunately for this group, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was afflicted with a president, one Arthur A. McLeod, who was not only too recklessly ambitious, but who was temerarious enough to cross the path of the really powerful magnates. With immense confidence in his plans and in his ability to carry them out, he set out to monopolize the anthracite coal supply and to make the Reading Railroad a great trunk line. To perfect this monopoly he leased some coal-carrying railroads and made "a gentlemen's agreement" with others; and in line with his policy of raising the importance of the road, he borrowed large sums of money for the construction of new terminals and approaches and for equipment.
Now, all of these plans interfered seriously with the aims and ambition of magnates far greater than he. These magnates quickly saw the stupendous possibilities of a monopoly of the coal supply—the hundreds of millions of dollars of profits it held out—and decided that it was precisely what they themselves should control and nobody else. Second, in his aim to have his own railroad connections with the rich manufacturing and heavily-populated New England districts, McLeod had arranged with various small railroads a complete line from the coal fields of Pennsylvania into the heart of New England. In doing this he overreached his mark. He was soon taught the folly of presuming to run counter to the interests of the big magnates.