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sent baskets of champagne to the heads of the traffic departments and sealskin jackets to their wives, while on the other hand, special rates were liberally bestowed upon their favorites. Special clerks were required to be wholly employed in issuing free passes. Judges and juries seemed to have a perceptible bias in their favor, the brightest attorneys were retained, and minor officials were glad to grant them favors. The country press was subsidized with passes for editors, their families and their friends."

A distinguished Englishman, the author of "The American Commonwealth," describing the palmy days of the dynasties, says:—

"These railway kings are among the greatest men, perhaps I may say are the greatest men, in America. They have wealth, else they could not hold the position. They have fame, for every one has heard of their achievements; every newspaper chronicles their movements. They have power, more power—that is, more opportunity of making their personal will prevail—than perhaps any one in political life, except the President and the Speaker, who, after all, hold theirs only for four years and two years, while the railroad monarch may keep his for life. When the master of one of the greatest Western lines travels towards the Pacific on his palace car, his journey is like a royal progress. Governors of states and territories bow before him; legislatures receive him in solemn session; cities and towns seek to propitiate him, for has he not the means of making or marring a City's fortunes?

"Such was the beginning of the dynasties of absolution in the management of Western railways (under the conditions of modern civilization the public highways of the land), which have since afflicted the business of the country, and are now, by both a reflex and direct influence, crushing the business of the railway companies