THE NEW HAVEN BANKERS
Few, if any, of those 121 companies which the New Haven acquired had, prior to their absorption by it, been financed by J. P. Morgan & Co. The needs of the Boston & Maine and Maine Central—the largest group—had, for generations, been met mainly through their own stockholders or through Boston banking houses. No investment banker had been a member of the Board of Directors of either of those companies. The New York, Ontario & Western—the next largest of the acquired railroads—had been financed in New York, but by persons apparently entirely independent of the Morgan allies. The smaller Connecticut railroads, now combined in the Central New England, had been financed mainly in Connecticut, or by independent New York bankers. The financing of the street railway companies had been done largely by individual financiers, or by small and independent bankers in the states or cities where the companies operate. Some of the steamship companies had been financed by their owners, some through independent bankers. As the result of the absorption of these 121 companies into the New Haven system, the financing of all these railroads, steamship companies, street railways, and other corporations, was made tributary to J. P. Morgan & Co.; and the independent bankers were eliminated or became satellites. And this financial concentration was proceeded with, although practically every one of these 121 companies was acquired by the New Haven in violation either of the state or federal law, or of both. Enforcement of the Sherman Act will doubtless result in dissolving this unwieldy illegal combination.