Irving Bacheller

“ If brains, rightly stimulated, can reduce the weight of a road wagon without any loss of strength, let's see what they can do with freight and passenger cars. If we could take a hundred pounds off every car in the country, think what it would mean. That weight could be turned from expense into income. Think of the saving in power and fuel. It would mean millions of dollars. ”

“ I went in, and now I'm looking into the whole railroad problem."
He began to unroll a great map which he had been making and which lay on a broad table. It was sixty feet long and showed a section of country some two hundred miles wide from Boston to Chicago.
"I won't bother you with details," he said. "But I have a great plan. It will cut down the distance from New York to Chicago by about one half. It will build up a chain of great cities. It will make a market for goods and quicken their delivery. It will furnish a model for the development of other parts of the Republic." ”

“ Here are others that go on to Chicago and others that run east to Boston. Here is a steamer line from New York to Albany out of business about half the year. Here are two lines of railroad that run north from New York to the capital—the Harlem and Hudson River. The Harlem road can be bought for less than six cents on the dollar. ”

“ You can whip 'em all into one system can give us a continuous trip between these from New York and Boston to Chicago. You can give us a continuous trip between these cities. You can run freight to any point in the system without rehandling on through cars to pay each railroad according to the mileage it supplies. You would make it possible for me to sell my goods in Chicago and other distant cities and deliver 'em on time. You would quicken the pace of business. Every factory on the line would double its output in two years. ”

“ Vanderbilt continued; "it's your freight car—remember that, and you don't want to carry any sap in it. Let me tell you a story. Bill is a fat good-natured cuss and wants to take it easy because he has a rich father. I told him that I wouldn't have him loafing around, and I sent him down on the farm and put him to work there, and Bill is getting along. He played a good joke on me and I've made up my mind that he'll do for the railroad business. ”

“ Get all the knowledge you can that a gentleman ought to have. There's a lot of very polished people down here. See how they dress and behave themselves morning, noon and night. It will be a help to both of us."
That day we were going to see Vanderbilt. Pearl had said to Mr. McCarthy at the depot in Rushwater:
"Don't let him scare ye. He's as full of power as my turbine. Has a good deal o' whir in him. Likes resistance; so does every great force. Used to row a boat all day an' every day. Fought the wind an' the tide. ”

“ You see there are eleven railroads between here and Buffalo. They have been consolidated but not harmonized. They are like eleven horses in the hands of a poor teamster. They don't pull together. They waste their strength. ”

“ All the incidents of this story are true. A young man, though not bearing the name of McCarthy, first suggested to Mr. Vanderbilt the idea of combining the railroads which form the New York Central system. Mr. Bacheller obtained the details of the Vanderbilt episodes from the accurate recollections of men who had the story at first hand. Even the little picture of Andrew Carnegie in war time is authentic—The Editors.
THE Hand-Made Gentleman had built his factory in the thriving town of Rushwater on the Central railroad. ”

“ My next problem was to manufacture within a certain limit of cost and my next to deliver the goods, and that is the greatest problem of all. The railroads are slow and unreliable. They have no more system than a carrier pigeon. Your freight is transferred until the boxes are worn out ”