Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/164

 Pacific. But I saw the Kansas Pacific was going to develop faster than the Union Pacific."

Mr. Gould's railroad operations were entirely too numerous to be followed in all their details, especially as enough has already been given to indicate the character of his enterprises. But no life of Mr. Gould would be complete without an account of his connection with Wabash. On this road, however, he simply repeated, though to a less degree, his tactics in Erie, and the result is a corporation almost hopelessly burdened with enormous obligations.

In the North American Review of February, 1888, will be found a full history of this unfortunate road. The writer says that "Mr. Gould remains the leading figure in the chapter of Wabash as he was of Erie." There is, he says, a "relative disappearance of the special forms of judicial usurpation and misconduct which lent such a lurid aspect to Mr. Adams' story, and in their place will be noted one sweeping judicial act followed by two or three supplementary acts which accomplished the designs of the actors with complete effectiveness." Gould gained control of the road in 1879 and became president in 1881. The writer of the Review article sums up the history of Wabash as follows:

"The Wabash system arose from the absorption and consolidation of sixty-eight separate original corporations; when thus consolidated the system owned and controlled in 1883 about 4,814 miles of railroad in the six states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,