Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/189

 Gould, Sage and Field agreed together to consolidate the three elevated railroad companies. They were, however, met by the determined opposition of President Kneeland, of the Metropolitan road. Nothing could induce him to waver in his opposition. His associates in the Metropolitan deserted him, and one by one they went over to Gould, but he stood firm to the very last, and his persistency caused a celebrated litigation, which proved so protracted and costly that Kneeland was finally defeated, though his spirit was unsubdued.

At that period Mr. Gould was the owner of the New York World, and for several months in 1881 that newspaper was greatly exercised over the bad management and "financial rottenness" of the Manhattan company. Scarcely a day would pass that the World did not contain an editorial or a news paragraph attacking Manhattan. The stock kept dropping two, three and five points at a time. With the beginning of July, 1887, suits were pending against the three elevated railroad companies in all of the state courts in which they could be brought. Mr. Gould became a stockholder in the Metropolitan company on the 1st of that month, 100 shares of stock having been transferred to him by Russell Sage. On July 8th, Mr. Gould, Mr. Connor, Mr. Navarro, and other friends of Mr. Gould were elected directors of the Metropolitan company. On the same day Attorney-General Ward entered an order discontinuing his suit against the Manhattan company in this judicial district. He immediately, how