31
THE RAILROAD LEASES
After the Civil War the railroad companies were building at a madding rate, the companies were pushing
finances and crews to the limit. The deal was that the more track that was laid the more land that was granted
to the railroads, so the race was on.
The railroads were getting into terrible financial shape and had to turn to
the government many times for help because of poor management and over building.
Eventually after a lot of
argument from the railroad operating companies to the government about the additional burden of federal
excise taxes that were being levied against the railroad operation companies for goods and services.
The rule
was passed that all the due Federal excise taxes could be rolled to the last day of the leases. All of the
railroad lands and operating companies are leased out to tenants that are conducting activities on these railroad
lands.
Keep in mind the word tenant.
With all of the federal excise taxes being rolled to the last day of the
lease. The original tenants of the railroad operating companies came up with an idea of how to get out of
paying the taxes. Even though they do not have the authority to sell railroad land (as far as the research
shows) there were no provisions to allow the tenants, the operation companies, to be legally capable of selling
off land and property that does not belong to them.
The situation we are dealing with here is no different than
if you were to go to a major city and leased a big business that sold furniture, and home furnishings. Let us
say that the building came equipped with carpet, light fixtures, office equipment etc., etc., then you bought the
merchandise to put in the store for sale. You would make your profit off of that commerce. When you get
ready to leave the primacies at the end of the lease you do not have the right to sell off the carpet, lighting fixtures, land and building that belongs to the landlord. You are the tenant. It is the same situation here with
the railroads, one family owns the train equipment, the land that the trains operate on and the buildings and
etc.
The operating companies are the tenants, and they are supposed to either renew their lease or return
everything to the owner, same as any other leased property.
They are supposed to also pay the federal excise
tax for the past 99 years too. But what they have been doing for many years is selling off land (that belongs to
the landlord, that is railroad property) to various companies and individuals and telling you that you now own
the property. What they have really done is found a guppy to buy the tail end of a 99 year lease that is due to
be up within the years of 1993 and 1995.
Whoever is sitting on the land, will be the tenant at that time and
will be looked at by the government as the one that owes the 99 years of federal excise taxes.
And to take this
just a little further, we have to go back to the original F.E.M.A. laws that were written back in the 1870s' that
is the very same thing that is in force today and just has the new name F.E.M.A. The government has always
had the power to seize control of transportation and communications in a time of emergency and distress in
this country.
The one little twist to all of this is that back in the Civil War times laws were written that if the
government takes the railroad granted land back from the family that owns it under a Deed of Trust dated Dec.
15, 1865, because the leases were not renewed, at that time the government has the right to walk into any odd
section, (or railroad owned land odd or even sections) of land and tell the people to get off.
If that person or
persons so persist that they own the land because they bought it and paid for it and have a warranty deed to
prove it. There are laws written that state that you can either be put into prison for a blatant outburst of total
ignorance or shot on sight. If you have a warranty deed you still have nothing, it has to be an Allodial land
patent. What people have been buying for decades is the tail end of a 99 year lease.
If you go way back in
the records you will see that it is stated in the county registry, that they are leases and are to be surrendered
back to the railroad on demand-no questions asked. And that also includes any improvements that you have
made to the land, also becomes the property of the railroad because you did the improvements on leased land.
How are you feeling right about now if you know your sitting on railroad land thinking it was yours? Its all a
plan to brake the backs of the people of this country and put them into total slavery.
On the two following pages that have white writing on a black background you can find where it states that the
land (on and odd section) had only been sold as a lease and that the land was to be surrendered upon demand
back to the owner which is the railroad landlord.
On the next pages you will find parts from the original
Richmond and Danville Railroad lease date June 18, 1894 for 99 years into the new company of Southern
Railway.
A CHARTER
EXECUTED JUNE 18, 1894
BY VIRTUE OF AND PURSUANT TO
AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
(SAID ACT APPROVED FEBRUARY 20, 1894)
Creating a Corporation and Body Politic with the name of
SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY
as Recorded in Deed Book ___ , Pages 60 to 67
The within document constitutes a miniscule part of the public
records which, since 1980, have been and now are under a
Federal Court Order of RECORDS SEALED by the Senior Judge of competent
jurisdiction pursuant to and under the authority of an Act
of the United States Congress of the 37th Session, Part 2, Section 5, enacted on July 17th, 1862.
This document has been transcribed from an original handwritten document as filed in the office of the County Recorder of a County and State which, at the option of the
transcriber, and
in order preserve the knowledge of the actual location of this
particular document, is and shall remain unnamed.
The transcriber hereby certifies that the within contained
document is, to the best of the abilities of the transcriber and
excepting any typographical errors, a true and correct copy(within certain parameters as outlined hereafter) of
said
document as written and recorded in the Book and Page(s) hereinbefore mentioned.
Several liberties have been taken with regard to the transcription herein contained, being, namely, that;
(a). where possible, all text included has been faithfully reproduced, however, where the handwriting was found illegible, the text thereby missing has been noted thusly:-[-.-?],
and;
(b). the transcriber has, for his own purposes, caused the statement "Charter Document Page No. ### of 8" to
be entered
at the bottom right hand side of each of the pages pertinent
to the transcribed document, and has also, for the purpose of clarification as to what text appears on which
original handwritten document page, at the top left side, or the top right side of each page, where applicable,
caused the page number as appearing in the original handwritten document to
be reproduced herein.
(c). at the end of the original handwritten document there are several statements, by various clerks and Court
Officers.
These statements have been altered at the option of the
transcriber in order to preserve the knowledge of the actual
location of this particular document.
The document herein transcribed begins
on line thirty two (32) of Page 60
SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY
June 18, 1894
To all to whom these presents may come:
The undersigned, whose names are hereunto subscribed, Charles H.
Carter and Anthony T. Thomas, a purchasing committee (here in after called Purchasers) who did purchase the
railroad and property of the Richmond and Danville Railroad Company, at a sale thereof held in the City of
Richmond on the 15th day of June, 1894, under a decree of purchase and sale entered on the 18th day of April, 1894, in a certain suit in equity pending in the Circuit Court of
the United States of America for the Eastern district of Virginia, where the Central Trust Company of New
York and others were complainants and the Richmond and Danville Railroad Company, a corporation created
by and existing under the laws of the state of Virginia were defendant, in which suit it was
sought to foreclose the consolidated Mortgage dated the 22nd day of
October in the year 1886 and upon or about that day duly executed, acknowledged and delivered by said Railway company to said Central Trust
Company of New York, and subsequently supplemented and confirmed by said Railroad Corporation by
instruments dated November 1, 1886 and
April [Charter Document Page No, 1 of 8] 30, 1888 respectively, in which suit it was undertaken to sell the
whole of the mortgaged property and premises, being the rights, property, privileges, and franchises of the said The Richmond and Danville
Railroad Company.
To which purchasing committee the Special Master
appointed by said United States Circuit Court, to wit: Matthew F.
Pleasants, Thomas S. Atkins, and Charles Price, by Deed bearing dated the 18th day of June, 1894 in
pursuance of the said decree of said Court and of other Courts in said deed mentioned did make conveyance of
the said railroad and other property and franchises so purchased more fully described in said deed referenced
and hereby made to the
same and to the record this day made in the Chancery Court of the City
of Richmond, in the State of Virginia as fully as though the same were incorporated at length herein.
And the undersigned, whose names are also hereto subscribed, to
wit: Samuel Spencer, Alexander B. Andrews, Francis Lynek Stitson, andWilliam A. C. Erwin (hereinafter
called Associates) whom such
purchasers have associated with them in this organization of a new
corporation pursuant to Section 2 of the Act of Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia next hereinafter mentioned.
Do hereby Certify.
In accordance with the Statute of the State of Virginia in such case
made and provided, and especially in accordance with Section 1 of the Act of Assembly of the Commonwealth
of Virginia entitled "An Act Authorizing the purchaser of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, their
assigns and successors to become and be a corporation, to adopt a
name, and to possess and exercise general powers and authorizing the leasing to or by and the consolidation
therewith of other corporations", approved February 20th, 1894, of which a copy marked
"Schedule"A" " is hereunto annexed and made a part of this declaration.
First: That the purchasers and their Associates have elected to become a Corporation under the same Act under the name of "SOUTHERN
RAILWAY COMPANY"
Second: That the purpose of said Corporation shall be to have, hold,
enjoy, possess and exercise the said railroad, property and
franchises of the Richmond and Danville Railroad Company which passed to the purchasers at the sale
here in before recited, and be invested
with all the estate, right, title and interest in and to such railroad
and other property with their appurtenances and all the franchises,
rights and privileges thereto pertaining, and, generally, from time to
time, to have, hold, enjoy, possess and exercise any and all of the rights, powers, privileges and franchises
conferred by the said Act of the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, approved February 20,1894, or
by any other Act or lease of which it may lawfully claim the[... ?].
Third: That the capital stock of the Southern Railway Company shall
be One hundred and eighty million dollars ($180,000,000) divided into
shares of the par value of one hundred dollars ($100) each, of which shares six hundred thousand Dollars
($600,000) shall be preferred shares and the remainder shall be common shares, provided, however,
that from time to time hereafter as provided in the said Act of the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, such capital stock and the several classes thereof may be increased up to but not exceeding the
limit presented by the said Act.
Fourth: That the Southern Railway Company from time to [Charter Document Page No. 2 of 8] time, may issue bonds to the amount of one hundred and thirty million
dollars ($130,000,000.) secured by a mortgage or mortgages of the
property and franchises of the Railway Company. In addition to from
time to time, assumed, extended, or reserved, or any substitutions
therefrom, and subject to further increase as provided by the said Act of Assembly.
Fifth: That such capital stock and bonds shall, so far as necessary, be delivered from time to time hereafter in settlement for the purchase of property in conformity with the
plan and agreement of organization under which the railroads, property and franchises have
been or shall be bought up by the said purchasing committee or company.
Sixth: That the first Board of Directors shall consist of five
members who shall hold office until the first meeting of the stockholders of the company to be held, and the names of such Board of Directors shall be:
Samuel Spencer
Charles H. Carter
Alexander B. Andrews
Francis Lyner Stitson
William A.C. Erwin
and the [Holder of the office] of the President shall be Samuel Spencer.
And to witness the acceptance of the before mentioned Act of Assembly by the Purchasers and their Associates they have signed and
sealed these presents, and have caused the same to be filed and recorded in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth and the
keeper of the Seals [and] of the Seal of the State of Virginia [and]
in the Chancery Court of the city of Richmond, this eighteenth day of
July, 1894.
C.H. Carter , Purchasers, Anthony J. Thomas , Samuel Spencer ,A. B. Andrews , Associates Francis Lyner Stitson ,W. A. C. Erwin , State of Virginia, S.S.
City of Richmond , Before me, the undersigned, T. Boston Hill, a Notary Public in
and for the City aforesaid Personally appeared in my city aforesaid
Charles H. Carter, Anthony J. Thomas, Samuel Spencer, Alexander B.
Andrews, Francis Lynde Stitson and William A. C. Erwin, the partners named in the foregoing writing bearing
date the 18th day of June,
1894, and acknowledged the same to be their act and deed to the end that the same might be regarded as such.
Given under my hand and official seal this eighteenth day of July in the year one thousand eight hundred and
eighty four.
J. Boston Hill,
Notary Public for the City of Richmond [Charter Document Page No. 3 of 8]
Schedule A
An Act
Authorizing the purchasers of the Richmond and Danville Railroad,
their assigns and successors to become and be a corporation and to
adopt a name therefor, and to possess and exercise general powers,
and authorizing the leasing to or by, and the consolidation therewith of other corporations.
(Approved February 20th 1894)
Whereas a certain suit in equity is now pending in the Circuit
Court of the United States of America for the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Central Trust Company of New York is complainant and the Richmond and Danville
Railroad Company, a corporation by and existing under the laws of the State of Virginia is defendant, in
which suit it is sought to foreclose the consolidated mortgage dated the twenty second day of October, in the
year one thousand eight hundred and eighty six and upon or about that day duly executed, acknowledged and delivered by said railroad corporation to said Central
Trust Company of New York and subsequently supplemented and confirmed
by said railroad by instrument dated November first," eighteen hundred
and eighty six and April thirteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty eight, respectively, in which suit it is proposed
to sell the whole of
the mortgaged property being the rights, property, privileges, and
franchises of the said The Richmond and Danville Railroad Company.
And Whereas it is deemed desirable and for the interests of the Commonwealth that the said railroad property shall be sold and reorganized in such manner and under such conditions as to secure the largest and best possible facilities and
advantages of transportation and communication for the people of this State, now, therefor:
1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia that the purchaser or purchasers of the said mortgaged premises of the said The Richmond and Danville Railroad
Company at the foreclosure sale thereof
in the cause of the said suit in equity, and such person or persons as
be or they may associate with himself or themselves shall forthwith
be, and they hereby are, constituted a body politic and corporate by the name which they may select as set forth
in the conveyance of said mortgaged premises, or in any writing signed by him or them and recorded in the Court in which the said conveyance shall be recorded,
and such new corporation shall have, possess and be invested with all the estate, right, title and interest in and
to such railroad, and
other property, with their appurtenances, and all the franchises,
rights and privileges had and possessed by the said Richmond and Danville Railroad Company, to the same extent as a purchase under Sections twelve hundred and thirty three and twelve hundred and thirty four of the Code of Virginia, and shall
perform all the duties presented by said sections of said Code, provided, however, that said new corporations shall not be limited as to the
amount or classification of its stocks or bonds, except that the total amount of stock issued
shall not exceed three hundred and fifty million dollars, and shall
have no immunity from any lawful State, County, or Municipal taxation by reason of its former charter or any
law heretofore exempting it
from taxation.
2. Such purchaser or purchasers may associate with him or them any number of persons in the organization of
the new corporation [Charter Document Page No. 4 of 8] which may create and issue its stock and its bonds secured by mortgage
or otherwise, according to any plan adopted by such purchaser or purchasers, and filed as hereinafter provided.
3. It shall be the duty of such new corporation, within one month after the conveyance to it of said mortgaged
premises to execute a
certificate in writing under its common seal attested by the signature
of its President or Vice-President, referring to the sale and conveyances by which it shall have acquired title to such premises, andthe plan of organization adopted by the
purchasers, the amount and
classes, or kinds, of capital stock and mortgage bonds or other obligation authorized to be issued, and also specifying the name of suchnew corporation, and of its President, and
the number and names of its
Directors, which certificate shall be filed in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia and a certified copy thereof
shall be conclusive evidence of the existence of such new corporation.
4. In addition to its other powers, such new corporation shall have,
and from time to time as occasion arises, may exercise the following power, or any of them, namely;
(A) . With the approval of a majority of its stockholders given at a meeting, it may, from time to time, lease,
own, operate, consolidate with, or purchase or otherwise acquire, or be leased, used, operated by, or
consolidated with any railroad or transportation company now or hereafter incorporated by the laws of the
United States, or of any of the States thereof, or any one or more of such railroad or transportation company or companies which now are, or hereafter may be leased,
owned, or operated by, or consolidated with any one or more of such railroad or transportation companies, and
from time to time it may consolidate its capital stock, property and franchises, by change of
name or otherwise, with the capital stock, property and franchises of any other railroad or transportation
company -power being hereby granted to any railroad or transportation company or companies incorporated by or under any Act or Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, with the approval of a
majority in amount of its or
their shareholders respectively given at a meeting, to make and carryout such contracts of consolidation or
lease, sale, or other method of
acquisition, provided, that in all consolidations, a copy of the agreement therefor shall be placed in the office of the Secretary of the
Commonwealth of Virginia, and that any corporation with which said new
corporation may consolidate, or which it may lease shall be -or
remain subject to the jurisdiction of the Courts of this State, andall lines of railroad operated by it in the State
of Virginia shall be subject to the general laws of the State, and provided further that any stockholder who
dissents from any such consolidation may within sixty days there after apply by petition to the Circuit Court of
the
City of Richmond to determine the value of his stock, and shall be entitled
to receive from the new corporation the value as thus determined of such stock upon transfer thereof to the new corporation.
(B) It may from time to time purchase, own and hold bonds or other evidence of debt, and shares of the capital
stock of any railroad company or companies formed under the laws of this or any other State,
and from time to time may guarantee or assume the bonds, evidence of indebtedness or capital stock of any such
railroad company.
(C) It may from time to time acquire or guarantee the stocks and bonds [Charter Document Page No. 5 of 8] or either, of any inland, coast, or ocean transportation company or
companies operating to or from any point or points on its lines and it
may develop, or aid in the development of its business by acquiring or
guaranteeing the stocks and bonds, or either, of hotel, lightkeeper,
wharf, elevating and other such enterprises convenient in connection
therewith or as a part thereof.
5. Said new corporation may issue its capital stock of one or more
classes or kinds, and in one or more series or grades, with such preferences, conditions and voting power as shall be provided in said plan
of organization, and, from time to time, it may increase or decrease the amount of any class or kind or grade of
such stock as shall be provided in said plan of reorganization or with the approval of a majority in amount of the stockholders given at a meeting of stockholders called for that purpose unless and except as otherwise expressly provided in certificates representing stock
previously issued. The
share of each class of stock shall be of such par amount and shall entitle the holders to such vote, respectively, as shall be determined
in the said plan of reorganization or by the stockholders in like manner.
6. Such new corporation may borrow money and issue bonds or other
evidence of indebtedness therefor, and may secure the same from time
to time by mortgage or deed of trust upon any or all of its property and franchises, and each new corporation
from time to time may issue
and sell its bonds and its capital stock at such prices and on such
terms as shall be specified in said plan of organization, or as a majority in amount of the stockholders shall approve at any meeting, andmay secure in payment therefore
properties, securities or shares in
any corporations mentioned in this Act and any stock so issued shall
be deemed fully paid and free from any liability.
7. The businesses, property and concerns of said corporation shall
be managed by a Board of Directors consisting of not less than five members and one of their number shall be
chosen as President. The
stockholders may adopt by laws for the government of the stock, property and concerns of the corporation and for the regulation of its
directors, officers and agents, and in and by such by-laws the stockholders
may prescribe how each by-law may be amended or repealed, provided, however that until such by-laws shall be adopted by the stockholders of the corporation shall be governed by by-laws adopted in accordance with the plan of reorganization.
8. The principal office of the corporation shall be in the city of Richmond, in this State, at which all meetings
of the stockholders
shall be held, and all the offices and workshops of said Company shall be located in the State of Virginia, as far
as the same may be practicable.
9. It shall be lawful for the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond
upon the petition of the President and Board of Directors at anytime
to order a change in the name of the company, but any such change of name shall be without prejudice to the
rights of any creditor or to the exercise of any of the powers or privileges granted by this Act.
10. There shall be paid to the Clerk of the County or corporation in which any mortgage authorized by this Act
may be presented for recordation the existing rate of taxation for such recordation upon the assessed value of the road-beds, depots, station buildings and lots, and machine shops, fixtures and rolling stock,
and any real estate not
included in said enumeration; in the State of Virginia, conveyed in
such mortgage and upon presentation to the clerk of the county or corporation whenever it is proposed to record. [Charter Document Page No. 6 of 8] said mortgage of a Certificate of the Auditor of the State of the amount of the assessed value of the said property within the State of Virginia and upon the payment of the tax thereon to the said Clerk,
the said mortgage shall be recorded without other charge than the
clerical fee provided in such cases. Certified copies of such
mortgage may be recorded in any County of Virginia in which property covered by such mortgage may be
located upon payment of [the] clerical
fee.
11. All taxes or debts due or to become due to the State of Virginia by the corporation shall be paid in lawful
money of the United States and not in coupons.
12. This act shall be in force from its passage.
(A Copy)
Signed: J. Bell Bigger,
Clerk of the house of Delegates,
and keeper of the Rolls of Virginia
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
J. Chas T. O'Farrell, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia,
certify that J. Bell Bigger whose name is signed to the within copy of an Act of Assembly bearing date the 28th
day of February, 1894 is, and
was at the time of signing, Clerk of the House of Delegates and Keeper
of the Rolls of Virginia, duly elected and qualified, that he is authorized by the laws of this State to make and sign such copy of an
Act and that to all his official acts, full forth, credit and authority are due, and ought to be given.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand as Governor and
caused the Great Seal of the State to be affixed. Done at the City of Richmond this 28th day of February, A.D.
1894 and in the one hundred and eighteenth year of the Commonwealth.
Signed:
Chas O'Farrell
(GREAT SEAL OF VIRGINIA)
by the Governor
Signed:
J.T. Lawless
Secretary of the Commonwealth and Keeper of the Seals
Office of the Clerk of [the] House of Delegates
and keeper of the Rolls of Virginia,
Richmond, Virginia, June 18, 1894.
I hereby Certify that the foregoing is a copy of an Act authorizing the purchase of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, their assigns and successors, to become and be a corporation, to adopt a nametherefor, and to possess and exercise general powers, and authorizing the leasing to or by, and the consolidation therewith, of other corporations.
Approved February 20, 1894.
J. Bell Bigger,
Clerk of the House of Delegates
and Keeper of the Rolls of Virginia.
Office of the Clerk of the Chancery Court of the City of _____________
18th June, 1894.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the Articles of Association of the Southern Railway Company, a corporation created by and existing under the laws of
the State of Virginia as therein mentioned, which Articles of Association are duly filed and
recorded in my said office this 18th day of June, 1894 at Twelve and a
half o'clock P.M.
Witness my hand and the seal of said Court.
Chas W. Giddin, Clerk
Clerk of the Chancery Court of
the City of
Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth
and the Keeper of the Seals of Virginia.
Richmond, Virginia, 18th June 1894.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the Articles of Association of the Southern Railway Company, a corporation created by and existing under the laws of
the State of Virginia as therein mentioned, which Articles of Association are duly filed in my
said office this 18th day of June, 1894
Witness my hand and official seal
Secretary of the Commonwealth and
Keeper of the Seals of Virginia.
City of ___________ , to wit:
In the office of the Court of Chancery
for
the said City this 18th day of June, 1894.
This Charter was presented and with the certificates annexed admitted to records at twelve and a half o'clock P.M.
Teste
Chas
W. Giddin
Clerk
END OF DOCUMENT
Cornelius
Vanderbilt is on public record as having
supplied the Confederacy with at least two
gunboats, and several other lesser type of
ships. He, of course, lost everything under
those same acts of treason, but, as per "the
rules", he was reinstated as Trustee to
ostensibly head up the reconstruction of
"his" railroad and hotel empire after the
war.
Included in this chapter is a map
showing some of the railroads of the
"Vanderbilt Empire", along with the
Pennsylvania Group of railroads, which were eventually all amalgamated under on
(Pennsylvania) system.
The hotel side of the "Vanderbilt Empire"
would like you to think they had one
crowning example which is situated in
Asheville. North Carolina-and is named
"Biltmore". This edifice is one of the
finest examples of French architectural
styles and of the affluence of the system of
railroad hotels in North America
today. It is mentioned (albeit in
passing, and by inference) in the current
Encyclopaedia of American Railroads, by
the phrase, where, in describing the
Western North Carolina Railroad, it states:
In 1894 the Southern took over the Richmond and Danville Railroad, bought the Western North Carolina Railroad, outright, and popularized the latter's western terminus, Asheville, as an elite vacation resort in the "Land of the Sky".
The Biltmore House, as it is known today by tourists, is the only hotel, not private home as it is purported to have been, in the area which could remotely be considered "elite". Included in this chapter is an example of the hotel and estate, which is today claimed by the Vanderbilt family to be their official family residence. They never bought it from the railroad, the railroad can never sell any of its assets, and the Vanderbilt family has managed to go bankrupt at least twice since the Civil War and the 1900's.
Therefore how can it be possible that they own this hotel, or private home as they claim?
George Vanderbilt was chosen by the Payseur family to become the in-resident manager and supervisor of the huge hotel and grounds. The hotel was placed on a 99 year lease, with the Vanderbilt family to be the trustees. The Vanderbilt's were the trustees of this hotel to care for and operate it for the duration of the lease, which is soon to end as of June 17. 1993. As of now, since they were asked if they, being the Vanderbilt heirs, would like to renew their lease on the hotel or would they like to vacate, no answer has been received.
The lease is recorded in a court house not too far away from that area, on the railway line that passed though the odd section of land, number 27. which the Biltmore Motel is setting on. Norfolk Southern Railway passes right through the northern corner of section 27. George Vanderbilt was born of Dutch decent. The Biltmore Hotel and a great deal of the furnishings in the Hotel are French, the same as the Payseur family. The family called the hotel their country palace and named it Swannanoa. A river by the same name flows through that property.
While on a tour in the Biltmore Hotel, the guide in my group was asked the question "where did the young George Vanderbilt of only about twenty three years of age get the money to built such a home?" The answer that was given was that they really couldn't find out where he got the money because the entire family had gone bankrupt in the time of the 1893 panic. They had also lost everything at the end of the Civil War and had just become trustees. I had the answer to the ladies question but had to bite my tongue to keep my mouth shut.
Biltmore is enormous-it has about 255 rooms. The Banquet Hall, the largest room in the house, is 72 feet long. 42 feet wide, and 75 feet high. The work was planned and carried out like a military operation. A private railway spur nearly three miles long and costing $77,500 was constructed to carry building materials from the main railroad line to the house site.
The principal material was limestone, brought 600 miles from Indiana. Hundreds of workmen labored on the house. Labor was very cheap: wages were from fifty cents to a dollar a day; and a mule could be hired for about the same price! A little town called Biltmore Village was built at the front gates to accommodate some of the workers. In addition to houses for the staff, it held offices, a railroad station, shops, sawmills, and a brick factory capable of turning out 32,000 bricks a day.
Biltmore House, although a pretty faithful reconstruction of an early French Renaissance chateau, in particular the Chateau de Blois, was up-to-date with internal conveniences. It had central heating, plumbing, refrigeration, elevator and dumbwaiter equipment, and it was lighted by electricity.
Even with all modern conveniences, the house and the stables, which had stalls for forty horses, required a staff of eighty servants. Several hundred more worked on the grounds. The interiors of the house were a combination of antique and reproduction furniture, some of it made especially for the house.
Richard Morris Hunt the architect of the structure, also designed the table in the Banquet Hall and a pair of throne chairs, which were carved by the sculptor. Karl Bitter. Other furniture and decorations were in various "revival" styles, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Louis XV, Sheraton, etc.. Scattered throughout the rooms were nineteenth century paintings and sculpture; many were Oriental objects of art.
In the mid-1880's, the new resort for the south was established in the Asheville, North Carolina area. The region was remote,it did not have passenger railway service until 1880. The site for this fabulous resort had beautiful forested regions. Using agents, so that the price would not go up on the rumor that the railroad was buying up land, agents obtained even sections of land that were already settled by farmers. The odd square mile sections were already owned by the railroad. By 1888, they had acquired about 2,000 acres for the tentative beginnings for the resort hotel of the south.
In 1895 the entire Pisgah forest was bought, comprising
about 80.000 acres of about half was already owned by the Payseur family. By the turn of the century, he
owned some 100.000 acres for the resort in the North Carolina mountains.
The resort area had an extraordinary range of species of trees, the forest was in a deplorable state, "burned, slashed, and overgrazed," in the words of Gifford Pinchot. the chief forester for the resort.
In December 1891, young Gifford Pinchot took charge of Biltmore Forest at an annual salary of $2,500 and subsistence. He was anxious to put into practice the theory of forestry that he had learned in Europe. He wanted "to prove that trees could be cut and the forest preserved at one and the same time. "He made the Biltmore the first piece of woodland in the United States to be put under a regular system of forest management whose object was to pay the owner while improving the forest.
Pinchol entered into his task with great enthusiasm, at ease with his employer. The first public knowledge of the Biltmore forestry' program came at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893. Pinchot showed greatly enlarged photographs of what the forest was like and what had already been done to improve it while making it pay.
Pinchot said this was "the first exhibition of practical forestry ever made in the U.S. The Biltmore Forest School, designed to train foresters, operated between 1897 and 1913. The Payseur family had a long history of forestry interest. In the little town of Lancaster, South Carolina. Lewis Cass Payseur started some of "his" first companies, such as Lancaster Manufacturing Company, which was for manufacturing telegraph poles, shipping crates, railroad ties, matches, turpentine and many other tree products.
It was just the start. Out of that company came such companies as Weyerhaeuser and Crown Zellerback. Even to this day. you can go to areas in Lancaster where the Payseurs first forests were and see
rolls of pine trees that were planted long ago and started as seedlings in egg shells.
Section location of the Biltmore House in relation to the
railroad sections and the present railroad line in Asheville,
North Carolina
A small group of Americans stand out in the late 1890's as men with sufficient vision to foresee the
America's future industrial needs could best be served by a more complete integration of steel making
operations. Two of the men that were a part of this group were Elbert H. Gary, popularly known as Judge
Gary, and Charles M. Schwab. Judge Gary was then president and trustee of the Federal Steel Company, the
largest western steel concern. Charles Schwab was directing affairs of the Andrew Carnegie company, then
the premier steel producer in the world.
These two men were brought together by the desire of Andrew Carnegie to step down as head of the Carnegie Steel Company of which he had been made Trustee and controller of by the Payseur family who really owned the company. He had become a very wealthy man because of the agreement he had made many years earlier with the Payseur's to be the front man and act as if he was the owner of the company in exchange for a healthy salary plus five percent of the profits of the company.
Around 1900 it became generally known that he wanted to retire and fulfill an often expressed wish to go down in history not as America's greatest steel master but as its greatest philanthropist.
Andrew Carnegie, who more than any one person made Pittsburgh, and Birmingham, famous as great steel cities, he was the son of poor Scottish immigrants. His first job was as a bobbin-boy in a cotton mill for wages of $1.20 a week, and his next was as a telegraph messenger. Around 1870, a gentleman by the name of Jonas W. Payseur, whose railroad company, the Lancaster and Chester Railroad Company owned U.S. Steel had set up another "small" steelworks, in Bessemer. Alabama, entirely out of his own pocket, and had also given over his land to the new company for the entire plant,all in exchange for nine tenths of the preferred shares (45.000 out of the 50.000 total number of preferred shares ever issued) of the steel company. Exchanging land for a new plant to be built on in exchange for nine tenths of the preferred shares of the new company was a standard way of doing business for the gentleman, his father had also created new businesses in this way, and his son was to follow.
Working in another new steel plant of Mr. Payseur, was a young man who was very quick to learn and the gentleman could see he had a lot of potential in the business world. All he needed was guidance and a little help. The older gentleman approached the young man, and offered him a very generous proposition; given that the gentleman offered to place the young man in charge of the plant, with, of course, the gentleman's personal guidance, and the young man would be made a primary member of the Board of Directors, and thereby could act as if he owned the steel mill, and in return, the gentleman would pay the young man five per cent (5%) of the net profits of the company for life, in addition to his regular (very handsome) salary. The young man agreed, thankful for this magnificent opportunity; the steel mill thereafter took on the young man's last name. Carnegie Steel brought into existence.
When Carnegie stepped down a new president and trustee was appointed, a man whom had been brought up through the ranks, Charles M. Schwab.
Along with the train came the telegraph, and shortly after that came the telephone. (American Telephone and
Telegraph (AT&T!). The first Electric (polyphase) generators were invented and patented by Nicola Tesla and
very publicly set up at Niagara Falls, giving Buffalo the distinction of being the second city in America to
have
electric light.
The part about the city is correct, but the experiment was tried and tested long before by the building of a dam and power station at Great Falls, South Carolina, which created Southern Power Company (now Duke Power) by the coupling of Tesla's generators (built under license by George Westinghouse, the railroad air brake king), and the patents of the hydro-electric turbines of the Gatling family (yes, those who invented the famous gun), and all this done by and under the Catawba Valley Railway Company (now part of Seaboard Air Line Railway (CSX) on the Catawba River.
Meanwhile Thomas Alva Edison invented the 12- volt light bulb for use on the railway carriages of the day under his company, Edison General Electric Company, which company was a division of and sponsored and financed by the railroad which subsequently allowed it to create the electricity distribution system (on and across the railroad lands) which is known today as the "National Grid" (now simply known as G.E., while its subsidiary, Sylvania, makes today's light bulbs, among other things).
This also means that wherever the power lines go is railroad land, and therefore part of the property of the original lessor, and so is a percentage of the preferred stock of the division and subsidiary companies. This land ownership by the railroad landlord includes the street in front of your house and part of your front yard. Possibly, all of your property is on railroad-owned land.
Production and Trading Companies
The production giant today known as General Motors came about as a result of the American Association of
Automobile Manufacturers, which was an association of such people (men, not companies) as Buick,
Chevrolet, Ford. Cadillac, and others, who, together, (Ford is one and the same as General Motors) have
cornered a massive market in automobiles, symbol of modernization since their inception in the late 1800's.
and not only in the United States.
The land for their massive facilities throughout the U.S. and other countries is railroad land, granted to the companies under 99 year leases and sub-leased in exchange for preferred stock.
That stock thereby became the property of the original lessor.
Minerals
The cars that General Motors make need fuel. Oil companies must drill for oil, and most oil facilities, both for production and refinement, are within a relative stone's throw of the railway, and invariably (mostly) on odd numbered sections of land. Guess what? Yes! Railroad land.
Almost all the oil companies we know today,
where they are not some small privately held Texas or Oklahoma style wildcatting company, are either a
division or subsidiary of a railroad, which, in exchange for the rights (mineral) or leases, owns 45,000 shares
of the preferred stock and holds stock certificate number 1. and the rest of the world owns 5.000 shares of the
shares of the oil company.
Also under the lands are many other minerals such as coal, bauxite (aluminum), copper, iron ore (and limestone) etc.. etc., and ail of the mining companies who wanted to exploit these resources had to lease their lands for buildings, smelting facilities, mines, from the railroad, all again subject to the same rules; preferred stock in exchange for their leases.
On the same land, if not mined by the open face, or pit, or strip mining method, are grown various crops,
usually trees. These became the catalyst for the formation of lumber and paper companies. Georgia Pacific
(everybody knows that to be also a railroad company). Weyerhaeuser. Crown Zellerback (a division of Mead
Inc.) International Paper, and many. many, others.
The trees cannot transport themselves to the mills; they go by river, or rail, or road, and the products ship out to the consumer the same way. Trees are a good crop because they take many years (15-40) to grow, therefore, should anyone claim that the railroad or timber company is not using the land and attempt to reclaim it, sorry!-We're farming it-the trees are growing, can't you see????...They'll be harvested in a few years.
Banks, Trust Companies and
Insurance Companies
All of the above businesses need two things in order to compete in the "modern world" of both then and now finance, for expansion and everyday running of the companies, and insurance, because virtually nothing can
run today without encountering a law requiring insurance of some kind.
Even the Federal Reserve has its own
"insurance" of sorts-the FDIC or the FSLIC. Again the insurance companies are a product of the banks, for the
banks (and themselves), which again, are a product of the railroads because the total banking system is owned
by railroads, long ago the banks were on board the trains that is why they were robbed so much.
On the following page is an example of common ownership and control of companies as they are jointly listed
in the telephone book under railroads.
The principal goal of the government in the construction of the U.S. system of railroads both before and after the Civil War was to create a fast transport system of railroads between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. Such a system would greatly enhance the abilities of the government to move troops to any arena from the Caribbean waters to the Isthmus of Panama, where there was already a trans.-Panama railroad in existence which would, in turn, allow further transport to the Pacific side, and thereby allow the movements of military and civilian assets up the coast to California and beyond.
The competition was set by the reward.
The first railroad company to achieve a direct link between Washington and New Orleans would be granted the monopoly for the railroads which would thereafter be built from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. This goal was reached shortly after the Civil War with the completion of the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad.
In one of the court-recorded documents which attests to that particular race from Washington to
New Orleans as well as to some of the constituent railroads forming the Selma, Rome and Dalton.
All the railroads which participated in that link-up from Washington to Mobile, thence by boat to New
Orleans, had been confiscated under acts of treason, and the railroad companies were lessee operating
companies.
The railroads west of the Mississippi were the Northern Pacific. The Union Pacific (which joined up with the
Central Pacific coming from San Francisco across the Great Salt Lake flats), the Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe
(formerly the Atlantic & Pacific), and the Southern Pacific Railroad.
These railroads exist today in almost the
same configuration with the exception that what was the Northern Pacific has been, since March, 1970 entirely
incorporated into the Burlington Northern Railway System.
Railroads East of the Mississippi River
Almost all the railroads of the eastern half of the United States were re-organized as a result of the great depression of the early 1890's. Out of that massive series of foreclosures were born the railway companies which became the primary railroad systems known today as Conrail, (Consolidated Railway Company), CSX (Chessie. Seaboard. Much More) and Norfolk Southern.
Conrail
Was chartered in the State of Pennsylvania in 1976 as a result of the Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 and
the
amendments to that act of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976. It controls and
operates over 17,000 miles of railroad track from the Atlantic Ocean to St. Louis and from the Ohio River to
Montreal. It is made up of the Penn Central System, the Reading, the central of New Jersey, the Erie &
Lackawanna, the Lehigh valley and the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroads, all formerly lessee operating
companies and all formerly bankrupt.
This chapter contains a graph with the assets of the Penn Central Railway system at its peak, just after its merger with the New York Central Railroad.
CSX
Is a company created out of the merger, effective on November 1, 1980, of Chessie Systems Inc., and
Seaboard Coast Line Industries Inc. (SCLI), and it claimed, in 1980, approximately S7.4 billion in assets.
Chessie Systems is a company created out of the merger of the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Baltimore and Ohio,
the Western Maryland, the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad, the Staten Island Railroad, and the
Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad.
Seaboard Coast Line Industries is a holding company comprised of the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (which
is
a massive company created by the merger on July 1. 1967 of the Seaboard Air Line Railway and the Atlantic
Coast Line Railroad), the Louisville and Nashville, the Clinchfield, the Georgia Railroad and Banking
Company (owner of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad, and co-owner of the Western Railway of Alabama),
the Durham and Southern, the Gainesville Midland, the Carrollton and Columbia and the Newberry and
Laurens Railroads.
All the Companies comprising the CSX group of railroads are lessee operating companies only.
Norfolk Southern
In 1980, the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company, by its merger with Southern Railway Company created a
system of railroads which boasted 32,000 miles of track age, $5.7 billion in assets, and collective earnings in
1979 of $100 million.
Norfolk & Western Railway
SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA RAILROAD
CHARLOTTE. COLUMBIA AND AUGUSTA RAILROAD
ASHEVILLE AND SPARTANBURG RAILROAD
WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD
COLUMBIA AND GREENVILLE RAILROAD
SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA EXTENSION RAILROAD
CAROLINA MIDLAND RAILWAY
ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD
In 1902 the following Railroads were merged into the Atlantic Coast
Richmond and Petersburg
Petersburg Railroad
Cheraw and Darlington
Northeastern Railroad
Manchester and Augusta
Florence Railroad
Wilmington and Weldon
Norfolk and Carolina
Southeastern Railroad
Charleston and Savannah
Brunswick and Western
Alabama Midland Railroad
Silver Springs, Ocala and Gulf
Tampa and Thonotossa
Savannah, Florida and Western
Ashley River Railroad
Abbeville Southern Railway
Southwestern Alabama Railway
SUMTER AND WATEREE RIVERS RAILROAD
TRANSYLVANIA RAILROAD
KENTUCKY AND INDIANA BRIDGE AND RAILROAD COMPANY
BALTIMORE AND OHIO SOUTHWESTERN RAILROAD
CHICAGO, INDIANAPOLIS AND LOUISVILLE RAILWAY
RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG AND POTOMAC RAILROAD
WASHINGTON SOUTHERN RAILWAY
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO RAILWAY
SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY
BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD
WHITNEY BRANCH YADKIN RAILROAD
LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD
KNOXVILLE, CUMBERLAND GAP AND LOUISVILLE RAILWAY
MIDDLESBROUGH RAILROAD
BENNETTS FORK BRANCH
KNOXVILLE, LaFOLLETTE AND JELLICO RAILROAD
CUMBERLAND RAILWAY
Greenpond, Walterboro and Branchville
1913
U.S. 62d congress, 3rd. Session, House Report, No. 1593 Chapter III
From Private Records
The control of the railroads and money, including credit for individuals and for companies is at best addressed by The United States of America in its attempt to gaze into the "Inner Group" which is now being handed to you as a result of the murder threats by the presently "corrupted inner group" hereinafter referred to as "White Collar Crimes", to which is stipulated that this letter and these IRS form 211 reports are in continuation of the matters then addressed by the 62nd Congress 3rd Session, December 2, 1912 through March 4, 1913 and contained in Volume "F" designated as "Private House Reports." House Calendar 424, to wit:
"Report of the Committee Appointed Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit, submitted by Mr. Pujo, February 28, 1913.
While it is known and proven that Mr. Pujo was on the right path, it is also known and proven that neither he nor his committee knew how to get into the "Inner Group" to obtain the truth, and about all they obtained was the outside information of what was thought to be the inside information, and this is clearly traced throughout this Congressional Committee Report, especially when associated to the railroad Inner Group. To the premise. Pointed out on page 147 of that "Private" Report, that it specifies, to Wit:
"Section 10. - Domination of Railroad Systems by Inner Group. Your committee finds that vast systems of railroads in various parts of the country are in effect subject to the control of this inner group, a situation not conductive to genuine competition.
Here again the Southern Railway offers the most convenient illustration. For 19 years it has been controlled by Messrs. Morgan and Baker under a voting trust. They still control it.
It operates in competition with the Louisville & Nashville and with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroads. While under such control Messers. Morgan & Co. purchased the Louisville & Nashville and turned it over to the Atlantic Coast Line, thus strengthening the latter against the competitor for whose stockholders Messers. Morgan and Baker were acting as trustees, and whose properties were in their hands.
During this same time, while Messers. Morgan & Co. had been financing the requirements of the Southern Railway, they have also been financing those of its competitor.
Your committee is of the opinion that such affiliations as are here shown to exist with competing enterprises are not wholesome, that they do not promote competition, but on the contrary tend as a cover and conduit for secret arrangements and understanding in restriction of competition through the agency of the banking house thus situated.
Section 11 - Railway Reorganizations as an Instrument of concentration. Our archaic, extravagant, and utterly indefensible procedures for the reorganization of insolvent railroads has furnished these banking groups the opportunities of which they have not been slow to avail themselves, of securing the domination relation that they now hold to many of our leading railroad systems. At one time or another within the past 30 years the hulk of our railways have gone through insolvency and receivership.
The proceedings are sometime instigated by the management through a friendly creditor (and are then generally collusive in their inception) or through the trustee for bondholders with the cooperation of the company. The railway company admits its insolvency, consents to the receivership- and one or more of the officers under whose administration in solvency was brought about: or their nominees, is made a receiver, and sometimes the sole receiver.
Neither creditors nor stockholders, who are the parties really interested, are notified or have an opportunity to be heard either on the question of insolvency or of the personnel of the receivers.
The stage has been set in advance, and so we find that simultaneously either the appointment of the receivers, or perhaps before, a self-constituted committee is announced, frequently consisting of men well known in the financial world, most of whom have no interest in the property, selected by a leading banking house. They invite the deposit of securities for mutual protection.
If the security holders do not like it. their only alternative is to form another committee, if they can arrange to combine their scattered forces and find influential men who have the courage to oppose the banking house and who can finance the cash requirements of these colossal transactions in hostility to the banking house that was first in the field. It is not easy to find such men."
This part of the "Pujo Report" is dead on target, but in the report, Mr. Pujo was trying to prove and could not prove that Mr. J.P. Morgan was the controlling party, which he was not. J.P. Morgan was the Banker-Trustee for Lewis Cass Payseur, owner of these various railway companies, detailed to the premise in the Voting Trust and in the United States Circuit Court, Distinct of South Carolina. 63 F. 21 Clyde et al, v. Richmond and Danville Railroad Company et al, Central Trust Company of New York v. same Ex parte Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Rail Road Company Ex parte Harden, August 9, 1894. We have now filed legal action against the present railroad tenant, CSX Transportation, whereas it is Federal Tax Fraud for a tenant to depreciate the owner's estate, and according to the old records Lewis Cass Payseur has never sold his railways and railroads, but they are LEASED for 99 years, Southern Railway Company, ending 17 June 1993, and Dec. 31, 1995 with J, P. Morgan as the Banker- Trustee under a Voting Trust instrument.
Between 1885 and the turn of the 20th century, Congress tried ineffectively to regulate the activities of what it perceived as a fast-growing monopolistic monster: the railroads and their attendant industrial complex. The first effort at such regulation was the passing of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1885, followed by the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887 and, later, "An Act to protect Trade and Commerce against unlawful Restraints and Monopolies", of July 2, 1890, all of which were designed to break up the monopolies controlled by the railroads and their attendant businesses. The politically expedient excuse was that this colossus was controlling the money supply itself, by locking up free money and allowing its use only by its own "member" companies and entities. In 1912 Congress ordered an investigation into this monopolistic industrial empire. Refer to the chapter on the Federal Reserve.
The one thing that is not mentioned anywhere is that the railroads that were organized before and during some of the early Anti-trust Acts formations actually had "Immunity" to the antitrust laws, so they have been operating anyway they liked up until the new anti-trust laws started being created in the 1970s'.
And because of the flurry of new laws and amendments to old antitrust laws all the companies, railway and others are all in violation of antitrust laws.
They are doing company shut down, cutbacks and layoffs. It appears that they plan to just stop operating the companies in the united states and move the companies into the third world nations which they now control.
Because the leases in the united states are about to end and the railroads operating companies, not the railroad owner, are trying to sell off all of the railroad land and property they possibly can, and pocket the money and leave the country.
The operating companies have not fulfilled their lease agreements. In many cases the way the leases were written, about 100 years ago, all of the federal excise taxes for production of merchandise in all the railroads and their subsidiary owned companies have been rolled to the last day of the lease.
Who ever is on the land or property which was originally every "odd section" and in some states a portion of the "even sections" of land in the united states of America, at the end of the lease is liable for 100 years of federal excise taxes, if the railroad leases are not renewed. People that have homes on former or current railroad property may get hit with high tax bills soon, or tax fraud for their having deprecated the property while inhabiting the property.
Summary of the Pujo Report
Ever since the publication of Henry D. Lloyd's Wealth Against Commonwealth in 1894, the charge that a small group of money masters controlled American industry, transportation and credit, had gained acceptance. With the muckraking campaign of the first decade of the new century, this charge was substantiated in many details and given wide popularity.
In February 1912, the House of Representatives directed the Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate banking and currency with a view toward necessary legislation.
A subcommittee, headed by Arsene P. Pujo, investigated banking abuses.
The chief examiner of the Pujo
committee was Samuel Untermeyer of New York. The material unearthed by the Pujo committee was
valuable for the campaign of 1912 and served to strengthen the hands of the reformers in the first Wilson
administration.[And right there we have their playbook,does not matter what the subject is with these Congress committee's get togethers.106 years and nothing changes as the focus of the committee,becomes how will it effect politics,not if we can make things right,their focus is always status quo of the system DC]
The "Pujo Report", contained 258 pages and three charts (graphics) of the interlocking relationships between live principal banking houses and almost all the railroads in existence in the United States at that time, along with the 22.245 billion dollars worth of assets which could be traced concerning those companies and banking institutions.
Pujo's main admitted problem in discovering those assets and worth was created from the fact that he had to go through several layers of trust, holding companies, associations and voting trusts to find out who were the real owners of the giants, and he admitted that with all the resources behind him, he could not even force the persons encountered to give him the information he needed to complete the investigation, which necessitated his asking Congress to allow him greater freedoms and powers of action, which was begrudgingly given him by House Resolution 504.
Even after the new powers were granted, he still complained of his inability to find all the interlocking relationships, let alone being able to determine the real owners.
He attributes the control (implying real ownership) to the man who seemingly foiled his best attempts at discovering the truth: Mr. John Pierpont Morgan, head of the voting trusts, and principal trustee and mortgagor to all of the companies in the huge conglomerate.
Pujo was able to discover some of the interlocking relationships between the banking and trust houses and the various companies, and also the interlocking directorships and trusts which he asserted controlled the newly discovered empire.
He was also able to determine, at least some, if not all the information the true net value of the companies and their incomes and asset. From this sparse information, he concluded that the directors and trustees who he named in the report had control over assets worth approximately $22,245,000,000.
The following is a brief overview of just some of the highlights of the 258 page report prepared by the committee.
The resources of the banks and trust company of the city of New York on 1911 were $5,121,245,175, which is 21.73 per cent of the total banking resources of the country as reported by the comptroller of the currency. This takes no account of the unknown resources of the great private banking houses whose affiliations to the New York financial institutions we are about to discuss.
That in recent years concentration of control of the banking resources and consequently of credit by the groups to which we will refer has grown a place in the city of New York is defended by some witnesses and regretted by others, but acknowledged by all to be a fact. From statistics compiled by accountants for the committee, in 1911, of the total resources of the banks and trust companies in New York City, the 20 largest held 42.97 per cent; in 1906, the 20 largest held 38.24 per cent of the total; in 1901, 34,97 percent.
Section 3- Processes of Concentration
The increased concentration of control of money and credit was affected principally as follows:
First, consolidation of competitive or potentially competitive banks and trust companies were brought under sympathetic management.
Secondly, the same powerful interests became large stockholders in potentially competitive banks and trust companies.
This is the simplest way of acquiring control, but since it requires the largest investment of capital, it is the least used, although the recent investments in that direction for that apparent purpose amount to tens of millions of dollars in present market values.
Third, the confederation of potentially competitive banks and trust companies was accomplished by means of a system of interlocking directorates.
Fourth, the influence which the more powerful banking houses, banks, and trust companies secured in the management of insurance companies, railroads, producing and tracing corporations, and public utility corporations, by means of stockholding, voting trust, fiscal agency contracts, or representation upon their boards of directors, and through supplying the money requirements of railway, industrial, and public utilities corporations, enabled to participation in the determination of their financial and business policies.
Fifth, partnership or joint account arrangements between a few of the leading banking houses, banks, and trust companies in the purchase of security issues of the great interstate corporations, accompanied by understandings of recent growth, sometimes called "banking ethics." had the effect of effectually destroying competition between such banking houses, banks, and trust companies in the struggle for business or in the purchase and sale of large issues of such securities. [In other words the game is rigged DC]
Section 4 Agents of concentration
It is a fair deduction from the testimony that the most active agents in forwarding and bringing about the concentration of control of money and credit through one or another of the processes above described have been and are:
In other words, the combined power of Morgan & Co., the First National, and National City Banks. In earlier
pages of the report the power of these three great banks was separately set forth. It is now appropriate to
consider their combined power as one group.
First-Banking Resources:
The total resources of Morgan & Co. are unknown; its deposits are $163,000,000. The resources of the First National Bank are $150,000,000. and those of its appendage, the First Security Co., at a very low estimate, are $35,000,000. The resources of the National City Bank are $274,000,000. Those of its appendage, the National City Co.. are unknown, though the capital of the latter is alone $10,000,000. Thus, leaving out of account the very considerable part which is unknown, the institutions composing this group have resources of upward of $632,000,000. aside from the vast individual resources of Messers. Morgan. Baker, and Stillman.
Further, as heretofore shown, the members of this group, through stock holdings, voting trust, interlocking directorates, and other relations, have become in some cases the absolutely dominant factor, in others the most important single factor, in the control of the following banks and trust companies in the city of New York:
Bankers Trust Co.
resources $250,000,000.
Guaranty Trust Co.
resources 232,000,000.
Astor Trust Co.
resources 27,000,000.
National Bank of Commerce
resources 190,000,000.
Liberty Nation Bank
resources 29,000,000.
Chase National Bank
resources 150,000,000.
Farmers Loan and Trust Co.
resources 135.000.000.
In all. seven companies with total resources of: $968,000,000. which, added to the known resources of members of the group themselves, makes: $1,600,000,000. As the aggregate of known banking resources in the city of New York under their control or influence.
If the resources of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (controlled through stock ownership of J.P. Morgan. $504.000.000. the amount becomes: $2,104,000,000.
Second, as regards the greater
transportation systems.
(a) Adams Express Co.: Members of the group have two representatives in the directorate of this company.
(b) Anthracite Coal Carriers: With the exception of the Pennsylvania, the Reading, The Central of New Jersey ( a majority of whose stock is owned by the Reading ), the Lehigh valley, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie Railroad ( controlling the New York Susquehanna & Western), and the New York, Ontario & Western afford the only transportation outlets from the anthracite coal fields.
As before stated. they transport 80 per cent of the output moving from the mines and own and control 88 per cent of the entire deposits. The Reading, as now organized, is the creation of a member of this banking group, Morgan&Co.
One or more members of the group are stockholders in that system and have two representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Central of New Jersey and have four representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Lehigh Valley and have four representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and have nine representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Erie, and have four representatives in its directorate: have two representatives in the directorate of the New York, Ontario & Western; and have purchased or marketed practically all security issues made by these railroads in recent years.
(c) Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe Railway: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have two representatives in the directorate of the company; and since 1907 have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $107,244,000.
(d) Chesapeake & Ohio Railway: Members of the group have two directors in common with this company ; and since 1907, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $85,000,000.
(e) Chicago Great Western Railway: Members of the group absolutely control this system through a voting trust.
(f )Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway: Members of the group have three directors or officers in common with this company, and since 1909, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $112.000,000.
(g) Chicago & Northwestern Railway: Members of the group have three directors in common with this company, and since 1909, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $31,250,000.
(h) Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway: Members of the group have four directors in common with this company.
(i) Great Northern Railway: One or more members of the group are stockholders of and have marketed the only issue of bonds made by this company.
(j) International Mercantile Marine Co.; A member of the group organized this company, is a stockholder, dominates it through a voting trust, and markets its securities.
(k) New York Central Lines: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have four representatives in the directorate of the company, and since 1907 have purchased from or marketed for it and its principal subsidiaries security issued to the extent of $343.000.000, one member of the group being the company's sole fiscal agent.
(l) New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have three representatives in the directorate of the company, and since 1907 have purchased from or marketed for it and its principal subsidiaries security issued in excess of $150,000,000. one member of the group being the company's sole fiscal agent.
(m) Northern Pacific Railway: One member of the group organized this company and is its fiscal agent, and one or more members are stockholders and have six representatives in its directorate and three in its executive committee.
(n) Southern Railway: Through a voting trust, members of the group have absolutely controlled this company since its reorganization in 1894
(o) Southern Pacific Co: Until its separation from the Union Pacific, lately ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States, members of the group had three directors in common with this company.
(p) Union Pacific Railroad: Members of the group have three directors in common with this company.
Third, as regards the greater
producing and trading corporations.
(1) Amalgamated Copper Co.: One member of the group took part in the organization of the company, still has one leading director in common with it, and markets its securities.
(2) American Can Co.: Members of the group have two directors in common with this company.
(3) J. L. Case Threshing Machine Co.: The president of one member of the group is a voting trustee of this company and the group also has one representative in its directorate and markets its securities.
(4) William Cramp Ship & Engine Building Co.: Members of the group absolutely control this company through a voting trust.
(5) General Electric Co.: A member of the group was one of the organizers of the company, is a stockholder, and has always had two representatives in its directorate and markets its securities.
(6) International Harvester Co.: A member of the group organized the company, named its directorate and the chairman of its finance committee, directed its management, through a voting trust, and markets its securities.
(7) Lackawanna Steel Co.: Members of the group have four directors in common with the company and, with associates, marketed its last issue of securities.
(8) Pullman Co.: The group has two representatives, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Baker, in the directorate of this company.
(9) United States Steel Corporation: A member of the group organized this company, named its directorate, and the chairman of its finance committee which also has the powers of an executive committee is its sole fiscal agent and a stockholder, and has always controlled its management.
Fourth , as regards the great
public utility corporations:
(1) American Telephone and Telegraph Co.: One or more members of the group are stockholders, have three representatives in its directorate, and since 1906, with other associates, have marketed for it and its subsidiaries security issued in excess of $300,000,000.
(2) Chicago Elevated Railways: A member of the group has two officers or directors in common with the company, and in conjunction with others marketed for it in 1911 security issues amounting to $66,000,000.
(3) Consolidated Gas Co. of New York: Members of the group control this company through majority representation on its directorate.
(4) Hudson & Manhattan Railroad: One or more members of the group marketed and have large interest in the securities of this company, though its debt is now being adjusted by Kuhn. Loeb & Co.
(5) Interborough Rapid Transit Co. of New York: A member of the group is the banker of this company, and the group has agreed to market its impending bond issue of $170,000,000.
(6) Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.: Members of the group have two representatives in the directorate of this company.
(7) Western Union Telegraph Co.: Members of the group have seven representatives in the directorate of this company.
The following is a list of the remaining companies that were owned by Lewis Cass Payseur and controlled by the Morgan Trust that the committee could find:
American Exchange National Bank of New York
Bank of Manhattan Company of New York
Central Trust Company of New York
Chemical National Bank of New York
Equitable Trust Company of New York
Fourth National Bank of New York
Hanover National Bank of New York
Mechanic and Metal National Bank of New York
National Bank of Commerce of New York
National Park Bank of New York
New York Trust Company of New Union Trust company of New York
U.S. Mortgage and Trust Company of New York
United States Trust Company of New York
American Security Trust company of Washington
Riggs National Bank of Washington
Mellon National Bank of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Fourth Street National Bank of Philadelphia
Franklin National Bank of Philadelphia
Girard Trust Company of Philadelphia
Philadelphia National Bank of Philadelphia
Central Trust Company of Chicago
Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chicago
Continental Commercial Trust and Savings First National Bank of Chicago
First Trust and Saving Bank of Chicago
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago
Merchants Loan and Trust Company of Chicago
American Surety Company Continental Insurance Company
Fidelity and Casualty Company
Carman American Insurance Company
Home Insurance Company
Mutual Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance Company
Northwestern Mutual Life
Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company
Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company
Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company
Illinois Central Railroad Company
Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad Company
Missouri Pacific Railroad Company
Norfolk and Western Railroad Company
Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company
Wabash Railroad Company
Wells Fargo and Company
Âll American Agriculture and Chemical Company
American Beet Sugar Company
American Car and Foundry Company
American Locomotive Company
American Smelting and Refining Company
American Sugar Refining Company
Armour and Company
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Central Leather Company
Intercontinental Rubber Company
International Agriculture Corp.
International Nickel Company
International Paper Company
National Biscuit Company
U.S. Rubber Company
Westinghouse Electric and Mfg.Co.
Public Utilities Companies
(1) American Light and Traction Co.
(2) American Telephone and Telegraph
(3) Chicago Elevated Railways
(4) Commonwealth Edison Company
(5) Consolidated Gas Company
(6) Intarboro Transit
(7) International Tract Co.
(8) New York Railway Co.
(9) Philadelphia Co.
(10) Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.
(11) Public Service Corporation of New Jersey
(12) United Gas Co.
(13) Puget Sound Electric Co.
A summary' of directorships held by these members of the group. The combined directorships in the more important enterprises held by Morgan & Co., the First National Bank, the National City Bank, and the Bankers and Guaranty Trust Co. which latter two, as previously shown, are absolutely contorted by Morgan and Co. through voting trust. It appears there that firm members or directors of these institutions together hold:
One hundred and eighteen directorships in 34 banks and trust companies having total resources of $2.679,000,000 and total deposits of $1.983.000.000.
Thirty directorships in 10 insurance companies having total assets of $2,293,000,000.
One hundred and five directorships in 32 transportation systems having a total capitalization of $11,784,000,000 and a total mileage (excluding express companies and steamship lines) of 150,200.
Sixty-three directorships in 24 producing and trading corporations having a total capitalization of $3.339.000.000.
Twenty-five directorships in 12 public utility corporations having a total capitalization of $22,245,000,000.
In all, 341 directorships in 112 corporations having aggregate resources or capitalization of $42,340,000,000.
The members of the firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. held 72 directorships in 47 of the greater corporations;
George F. Baker, chairman of the board, F.L. Hine, president and George F. Baker, Jr. and C. D. Norton. Vice presidents, of the First National Bank of New York, hold 46 directorships in 37 of the greater corporations: and
James Stillman, chairman of the board, Frank a Vanderlip, president, and Samuel McRoberts, J. T. Talbert. W.A. Simonson, vice-presidents, of the National City Bank of New York, hold 32 directorships in 26 of the greater corporations; making in all for these members of the group 150 directorships in 110 of the greater corporations.
The committee never could get past the voting trust, to break the veil of secret ownership to all these companies plus many more there were 364, plus many more that were all owned by the Payseur family. Cross reference this list of companies with the chapter of "Assets of Lewis Cass Payseur" that were filed for probate in Alabama.
Next
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION ACT OF 1914
32
THE VANDERBILT EMPIRE
Confiscations were not only limited to
those people of the South. Some of the
people of the Union also had their assets
confiscated for their support of the
rebellion (and its rebels). The Vanderbilt
family epitomizes this situation. In 1894 the Southern took over the Richmond and Danville Railroad, bought the Western North Carolina Railroad, outright, and popularized the latter's western terminus, Asheville, as an elite vacation resort in the "Land of the Sky".
The Biltmore House, as it is known today by tourists, is the only hotel, not private home as it is purported to have been, in the area which could remotely be considered "elite". Included in this chapter is an example of the hotel and estate, which is today claimed by the Vanderbilt family to be their official family residence. They never bought it from the railroad, the railroad can never sell any of its assets, and the Vanderbilt family has managed to go bankrupt at least twice since the Civil War and the 1900's.
Therefore how can it be possible that they own this hotel, or private home as they claim?
George Vanderbilt was chosen by the Payseur family to become the in-resident manager and supervisor of the huge hotel and grounds. The hotel was placed on a 99 year lease, with the Vanderbilt family to be the trustees. The Vanderbilt's were the trustees of this hotel to care for and operate it for the duration of the lease, which is soon to end as of June 17. 1993. As of now, since they were asked if they, being the Vanderbilt heirs, would like to renew their lease on the hotel or would they like to vacate, no answer has been received.
The lease is recorded in a court house not too far away from that area, on the railway line that passed though the odd section of land, number 27. which the Biltmore Motel is setting on. Norfolk Southern Railway passes right through the northern corner of section 27. George Vanderbilt was born of Dutch decent. The Biltmore Hotel and a great deal of the furnishings in the Hotel are French, the same as the Payseur family. The family called the hotel their country palace and named it Swannanoa. A river by the same name flows through that property.
While on a tour in the Biltmore Hotel, the guide in my group was asked the question "where did the young George Vanderbilt of only about twenty three years of age get the money to built such a home?" The answer that was given was that they really couldn't find out where he got the money because the entire family had gone bankrupt in the time of the 1893 panic. They had also lost everything at the end of the Civil War and had just become trustees. I had the answer to the ladies question but had to bite my tongue to keep my mouth shut.
Biltmore is enormous-it has about 255 rooms. The Banquet Hall, the largest room in the house, is 72 feet long. 42 feet wide, and 75 feet high. The work was planned and carried out like a military operation. A private railway spur nearly three miles long and costing $77,500 was constructed to carry building materials from the main railroad line to the house site.
The principal material was limestone, brought 600 miles from Indiana. Hundreds of workmen labored on the house. Labor was very cheap: wages were from fifty cents to a dollar a day; and a mule could be hired for about the same price! A little town called Biltmore Village was built at the front gates to accommodate some of the workers. In addition to houses for the staff, it held offices, a railroad station, shops, sawmills, and a brick factory capable of turning out 32,000 bricks a day.
Biltmore House, although a pretty faithful reconstruction of an early French Renaissance chateau, in particular the Chateau de Blois, was up-to-date with internal conveniences. It had central heating, plumbing, refrigeration, elevator and dumbwaiter equipment, and it was lighted by electricity.
Even with all modern conveniences, the house and the stables, which had stalls for forty horses, required a staff of eighty servants. Several hundred more worked on the grounds. The interiors of the house were a combination of antique and reproduction furniture, some of it made especially for the house.
Richard Morris Hunt the architect of the structure, also designed the table in the Banquet Hall and a pair of throne chairs, which were carved by the sculptor. Karl Bitter. Other furniture and decorations were in various "revival" styles, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Louis XV, Sheraton, etc.. Scattered throughout the rooms were nineteenth century paintings and sculpture; many were Oriental objects of art.
In the mid-1880's, the new resort for the south was established in the Asheville, North Carolina area. The region was remote,it did not have passenger railway service until 1880. The site for this fabulous resort had beautiful forested regions. Using agents, so that the price would not go up on the rumor that the railroad was buying up land, agents obtained even sections of land that were already settled by farmers. The odd square mile sections were already owned by the railroad. By 1888, they had acquired about 2,000 acres for the tentative beginnings for the resort hotel of the south.
The resort area had an extraordinary range of species of trees, the forest was in a deplorable state, "burned, slashed, and overgrazed," in the words of Gifford Pinchot. the chief forester for the resort.
In December 1891, young Gifford Pinchot took charge of Biltmore Forest at an annual salary of $2,500 and subsistence. He was anxious to put into practice the theory of forestry that he had learned in Europe. He wanted "to prove that trees could be cut and the forest preserved at one and the same time. "He made the Biltmore the first piece of woodland in the United States to be put under a regular system of forest management whose object was to pay the owner while improving the forest.
Pinchol entered into his task with great enthusiasm, at ease with his employer. The first public knowledge of the Biltmore forestry' program came at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893. Pinchot showed greatly enlarged photographs of what the forest was like and what had already been done to improve it while making it pay.
Pinchot said this was "the first exhibition of practical forestry ever made in the U.S. The Biltmore Forest School, designed to train foresters, operated between 1897 and 1913. The Payseur family had a long history of forestry interest. In the little town of Lancaster, South Carolina. Lewis Cass Payseur started some of "his" first companies, such as Lancaster Manufacturing Company, which was for manufacturing telegraph poles, shipping crates, railroad ties, matches, turpentine and many other tree products.
33
THE ANDREW CARNEGIE, STEEL DEAL
In the closing years of the nineteenth century profound changes were taking place in the nation. We were like
a youth outgrowing a boy's clothes. Our economy was enlarging at such a rate that some industries were
seeking more efficient means of production through integrated operations. Large scale production was new on
the American scene. It took a wrench in thinking for some people to realize the magnitude of America, and
that mass markets require mass production. These two men were brought together by the desire of Andrew Carnegie to step down as head of the Carnegie Steel Company of which he had been made Trustee and controller of by the Payseur family who really owned the company. He had become a very wealthy man because of the agreement he had made many years earlier with the Payseur's to be the front man and act as if he was the owner of the company in exchange for a healthy salary plus five percent of the profits of the company.
Around 1900 it became generally known that he wanted to retire and fulfill an often expressed wish to go down in history not as America's greatest steel master but as its greatest philanthropist.
Andrew Carnegie, who more than any one person made Pittsburgh, and Birmingham, famous as great steel cities, he was the son of poor Scottish immigrants. His first job was as a bobbin-boy in a cotton mill for wages of $1.20 a week, and his next was as a telegraph messenger. Around 1870, a gentleman by the name of Jonas W. Payseur, whose railroad company, the Lancaster and Chester Railroad Company owned U.S. Steel had set up another "small" steelworks, in Bessemer. Alabama, entirely out of his own pocket, and had also given over his land to the new company for the entire plant,all in exchange for nine tenths of the preferred shares (45.000 out of the 50.000 total number of preferred shares ever issued) of the steel company. Exchanging land for a new plant to be built on in exchange for nine tenths of the preferred shares of the new company was a standard way of doing business for the gentleman, his father had also created new businesses in this way, and his son was to follow.
Working in another new steel plant of Mr. Payseur, was a young man who was very quick to learn and the gentleman could see he had a lot of potential in the business world. All he needed was guidance and a little help. The older gentleman approached the young man, and offered him a very generous proposition; given that the gentleman offered to place the young man in charge of the plant, with, of course, the gentleman's personal guidance, and the young man would be made a primary member of the Board of Directors, and thereby could act as if he owned the steel mill, and in return, the gentleman would pay the young man five per cent (5%) of the net profits of the company for life, in addition to his regular (very handsome) salary. The young man agreed, thankful for this magnificent opportunity; the steel mill thereafter took on the young man's last name. Carnegie Steel brought into existence.
When Carnegie stepped down a new president and trustee was appointed, a man whom had been brought up through the ranks, Charles M. Schwab.
34
COMPANIES OWNED BY THE RAILROADS
Public Utility Companies The part about the city is correct, but the experiment was tried and tested long before by the building of a dam and power station at Great Falls, South Carolina, which created Southern Power Company (now Duke Power) by the coupling of Tesla's generators (built under license by George Westinghouse, the railroad air brake king), and the patents of the hydro-electric turbines of the Gatling family (yes, those who invented the famous gun), and all this done by and under the Catawba Valley Railway Company (now part of Seaboard Air Line Railway (CSX) on the Catawba River.
Meanwhile Thomas Alva Edison invented the 12- volt light bulb for use on the railway carriages of the day under his company, Edison General Electric Company, which company was a division of and sponsored and financed by the railroad which subsequently allowed it to create the electricity distribution system (on and across the railroad lands) which is known today as the "National Grid" (now simply known as G.E., while its subsidiary, Sylvania, makes today's light bulbs, among other things).
This also means that wherever the power lines go is railroad land, and therefore part of the property of the original lessor, and so is a percentage of the preferred stock of the division and subsidiary companies. This land ownership by the railroad landlord includes the street in front of your house and part of your front yard. Possibly, all of your property is on railroad-owned land.
Production and Trading Companies
The land for their massive facilities throughout the U.S. and other countries is railroad land, granted to the companies under 99 year leases and sub-leased in exchange for preferred stock.
That stock thereby became the property of the original lessor.
Minerals
The cars that General Motors make need fuel. Oil companies must drill for oil, and most oil facilities, both for production and refinement, are within a relative stone's throw of the railway, and invariably (mostly) on odd numbered sections of land. Guess what? Yes! Railroad land.
Also under the lands are many other minerals such as coal, bauxite (aluminum), copper, iron ore (and limestone) etc.. etc., and ail of the mining companies who wanted to exploit these resources had to lease their lands for buildings, smelting facilities, mines, from the railroad, all again subject to the same rules; preferred stock in exchange for their leases.
The trees cannot transport themselves to the mills; they go by river, or rail, or road, and the products ship out to the consumer the same way. Trees are a good crop because they take many years (15-40) to grow, therefore, should anyone claim that the railroad or timber company is not using the land and attempt to reclaim it, sorry!-We're farming it-the trees are growing, can't you see????...They'll be harvested in a few years.
Banks, Trust Companies and
Insurance Companies
35
RAILROAD OPERATING COMPANIES
Railroads West of the Mississippi River The principal goal of the government in the construction of the U.S. system of railroads both before and after the Civil War was to create a fast transport system of railroads between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. Such a system would greatly enhance the abilities of the government to move troops to any arena from the Caribbean waters to the Isthmus of Panama, where there was already a trans.-Panama railroad in existence which would, in turn, allow further transport to the Pacific side, and thereby allow the movements of military and civilian assets up the coast to California and beyond.
The competition was set by the reward.
The first railroad company to achieve a direct link between Washington and New Orleans would be granted the monopoly for the railroads which would thereafter be built from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. This goal was reached shortly after the Civil War with the completion of the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad.
Railroads East of the Mississippi River
Almost all the railroads of the eastern half of the United States were re-organized as a result of the great depression of the early 1890's. Out of that massive series of foreclosures were born the railway companies which became the primary railroad systems known today as Conrail, (Consolidated Railway Company), CSX (Chessie. Seaboard. Much More) and Norfolk Southern.
Conrail
This chapter contains a graph with the assets of the Penn Central Railway system at its peak, just after its merger with the New York Central Railroad.
CSX
All the Companies comprising the CSX group of railroads are lessee operating companies only.
Norfolk Southern
Norfolk & Western Railway
Norfolk & Western Railway was originally a lessee and operating company created out of the foreclosure and
reorganization of the Atlantic, Missouri and Ohio Railroad in 1896, and it presently controls more than 15,000
miles of railroad. The original railroad was enlarged by a series of mergers with other companies, which
include, but are not limited to, the Virginian, the Wabash, the Nickel Plate, the Akron, Canton and
Youngstown, The Pittsburgh and West Virginia, the Sandusky Line of the Pennsylvania System, the Carolina
and Northwestern, and the Delaware and Hudson Railroads.
Southern Railway
Southern Railway was created on June 18, 1894 as the lessee operating company (out of the foreclosure
against the Richmond and Danville Railroad) for a series of railway companies, and it currently controls more
than 17,000 miles of track age.
The list of Railroads that were merged into Southern Railway are as follows:
GEORGIA MIDLAND RAILWAY
CINCINNATI AND GEORGIA RAILROAD
RICHMOND AND MECKLENBURG RAILROAD
CLARKVILLE AND NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD
MOBILE AND BIRMINGHAM RAILROAD
ALABAMA CENTRAL RAILROAD
ATLANTIC AND DANVILLE RAILWAY
LACKHART RAILROAD
SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA RAILROAD
CHARLOTTE. COLUMBIA AND AUGUSTA RAILROAD
ASHEVILLE AND SPARTANBURG RAILROAD
WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD
COLUMBIA AND GREENVILLE RAILROAD
SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA EXTENSION RAILROAD
CAROLINA MIDLAND RAILWAY
ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD
In 1902 the following Railroads were merged into the Atlantic Coast
Richmond and Petersburg
Petersburg Railroad
Cheraw and Darlington
Northeastern Railroad
Manchester and Augusta
Florence Railroad
Wilmington and Weldon
Norfolk and Carolina
Southeastern Railroad
Charleston and Savannah
Brunswick and Western
Alabama Midland Railroad
Silver Springs, Ocala and Gulf
Tampa and Thonotossa
Savannah, Florida and Western
Ashley River Railroad
Abbeville Southern Railway
Southwestern Alabama Railway
SUMTER AND WATEREE RIVERS RAILROAD
TRANSYLVANIA RAILROAD
KENTUCKY AND INDIANA BRIDGE AND RAILROAD COMPANY
BALTIMORE AND OHIO SOUTHWESTERN RAILROAD
CHICAGO, INDIANAPOLIS AND LOUISVILLE RAILWAY
RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG AND POTOMAC RAILROAD
WASHINGTON SOUTHERN RAILWAY
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO RAILWAY
SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY
BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD
WHITNEY BRANCH YADKIN RAILROAD
LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD
KNOXVILLE, CUMBERLAND GAP AND LOUISVILLE RAILWAY
MIDDLESBROUGH RAILROAD
BENNETTS FORK BRANCH
KNOXVILLE, LaFOLLETTE AND JELLICO RAILROAD
CUMBERLAND RAILWAY
Greenpond, Walterboro and Branchville
36
THE DOMINATED CONTROL
OF MONEY AND CREDIT
REPORT OF THE PUJO COMMITTEE 1913
U.S. 62d congress, 3rd. Session, House Report, No. 1593 Chapter III
From Private Records
The control of the railroads and money, including credit for individuals and for companies is at best addressed by The United States of America in its attempt to gaze into the "Inner Group" which is now being handed to you as a result of the murder threats by the presently "corrupted inner group" hereinafter referred to as "White Collar Crimes", to which is stipulated that this letter and these IRS form 211 reports are in continuation of the matters then addressed by the 62nd Congress 3rd Session, December 2, 1912 through March 4, 1913 and contained in Volume "F" designated as "Private House Reports." House Calendar 424, to wit:
"Report of the Committee Appointed Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit, submitted by Mr. Pujo, February 28, 1913.
While it is known and proven that Mr. Pujo was on the right path, it is also known and proven that neither he nor his committee knew how to get into the "Inner Group" to obtain the truth, and about all they obtained was the outside information of what was thought to be the inside information, and this is clearly traced throughout this Congressional Committee Report, especially when associated to the railroad Inner Group. To the premise. Pointed out on page 147 of that "Private" Report, that it specifies, to Wit:
"Section 10. - Domination of Railroad Systems by Inner Group. Your committee finds that vast systems of railroads in various parts of the country are in effect subject to the control of this inner group, a situation not conductive to genuine competition.
Here again the Southern Railway offers the most convenient illustration. For 19 years it has been controlled by Messrs. Morgan and Baker under a voting trust. They still control it.
It operates in competition with the Louisville & Nashville and with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroads. While under such control Messers. Morgan & Co. purchased the Louisville & Nashville and turned it over to the Atlantic Coast Line, thus strengthening the latter against the competitor for whose stockholders Messers. Morgan and Baker were acting as trustees, and whose properties were in their hands.
During this same time, while Messers. Morgan & Co. had been financing the requirements of the Southern Railway, they have also been financing those of its competitor.
Your committee is of the opinion that such affiliations as are here shown to exist with competing enterprises are not wholesome, that they do not promote competition, but on the contrary tend as a cover and conduit for secret arrangements and understanding in restriction of competition through the agency of the banking house thus situated.
Section 11 - Railway Reorganizations as an Instrument of concentration. Our archaic, extravagant, and utterly indefensible procedures for the reorganization of insolvent railroads has furnished these banking groups the opportunities of which they have not been slow to avail themselves, of securing the domination relation that they now hold to many of our leading railroad systems. At one time or another within the past 30 years the hulk of our railways have gone through insolvency and receivership.
The proceedings are sometime instigated by the management through a friendly creditor (and are then generally collusive in their inception) or through the trustee for bondholders with the cooperation of the company. The railway company admits its insolvency, consents to the receivership- and one or more of the officers under whose administration in solvency was brought about: or their nominees, is made a receiver, and sometimes the sole receiver.
Neither creditors nor stockholders, who are the parties really interested, are notified or have an opportunity to be heard either on the question of insolvency or of the personnel of the receivers.
The stage has been set in advance, and so we find that simultaneously either the appointment of the receivers, or perhaps before, a self-constituted committee is announced, frequently consisting of men well known in the financial world, most of whom have no interest in the property, selected by a leading banking house. They invite the deposit of securities for mutual protection.
If the security holders do not like it. their only alternative is to form another committee, if they can arrange to combine their scattered forces and find influential men who have the courage to oppose the banking house and who can finance the cash requirements of these colossal transactions in hostility to the banking house that was first in the field. It is not easy to find such men."
This part of the "Pujo Report" is dead on target, but in the report, Mr. Pujo was trying to prove and could not prove that Mr. J.P. Morgan was the controlling party, which he was not. J.P. Morgan was the Banker-Trustee for Lewis Cass Payseur, owner of these various railway companies, detailed to the premise in the Voting Trust and in the United States Circuit Court, Distinct of South Carolina. 63 F. 21 Clyde et al, v. Richmond and Danville Railroad Company et al, Central Trust Company of New York v. same Ex parte Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Rail Road Company Ex parte Harden, August 9, 1894. We have now filed legal action against the present railroad tenant, CSX Transportation, whereas it is Federal Tax Fraud for a tenant to depreciate the owner's estate, and according to the old records Lewis Cass Payseur has never sold his railways and railroads, but they are LEASED for 99 years, Southern Railway Company, ending 17 June 1993, and Dec. 31, 1995 with J, P. Morgan as the Banker- Trustee under a Voting Trust instrument.
Between 1885 and the turn of the 20th century, Congress tried ineffectively to regulate the activities of what it perceived as a fast-growing monopolistic monster: the railroads and their attendant industrial complex. The first effort at such regulation was the passing of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1885, followed by the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887 and, later, "An Act to protect Trade and Commerce against unlawful Restraints and Monopolies", of July 2, 1890, all of which were designed to break up the monopolies controlled by the railroads and their attendant businesses. The politically expedient excuse was that this colossus was controlling the money supply itself, by locking up free money and allowing its use only by its own "member" companies and entities. In 1912 Congress ordered an investigation into this monopolistic industrial empire. Refer to the chapter on the Federal Reserve.
The one thing that is not mentioned anywhere is that the railroads that were organized before and during some of the early Anti-trust Acts formations actually had "Immunity" to the antitrust laws, so they have been operating anyway they liked up until the new anti-trust laws started being created in the 1970s'.
And because of the flurry of new laws and amendments to old antitrust laws all the companies, railway and others are all in violation of antitrust laws.
They are doing company shut down, cutbacks and layoffs. It appears that they plan to just stop operating the companies in the united states and move the companies into the third world nations which they now control.
Because the leases in the united states are about to end and the railroads operating companies, not the railroad owner, are trying to sell off all of the railroad land and property they possibly can, and pocket the money and leave the country.
The operating companies have not fulfilled their lease agreements. In many cases the way the leases were written, about 100 years ago, all of the federal excise taxes for production of merchandise in all the railroads and their subsidiary owned companies have been rolled to the last day of the lease.
Who ever is on the land or property which was originally every "odd section" and in some states a portion of the "even sections" of land in the united states of America, at the end of the lease is liable for 100 years of federal excise taxes, if the railroad leases are not renewed. People that have homes on former or current railroad property may get hit with high tax bills soon, or tax fraud for their having deprecated the property while inhabiting the property.
Summary of the Pujo Report
Ever since the publication of Henry D. Lloyd's Wealth Against Commonwealth in 1894, the charge that a small group of money masters controlled American industry, transportation and credit, had gained acceptance. With the muckraking campaign of the first decade of the new century, this charge was substantiated in many details and given wide popularity.
In February 1912, the House of Representatives directed the Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate banking and currency with a view toward necessary legislation.
A subcommittee, headed by Arsene P. Pujo, investigated banking abuses.
The "Pujo Report", contained 258 pages and three charts (graphics) of the interlocking relationships between live principal banking houses and almost all the railroads in existence in the United States at that time, along with the 22.245 billion dollars worth of assets which could be traced concerning those companies and banking institutions.
Pujo's main admitted problem in discovering those assets and worth was created from the fact that he had to go through several layers of trust, holding companies, associations and voting trusts to find out who were the real owners of the giants, and he admitted that with all the resources behind him, he could not even force the persons encountered to give him the information he needed to complete the investigation, which necessitated his asking Congress to allow him greater freedoms and powers of action, which was begrudgingly given him by House Resolution 504.
Even after the new powers were granted, he still complained of his inability to find all the interlocking relationships, let alone being able to determine the real owners.
He attributes the control (implying real ownership) to the man who seemingly foiled his best attempts at discovering the truth: Mr. John Pierpont Morgan, head of the voting trusts, and principal trustee and mortgagor to all of the companies in the huge conglomerate.
Pujo was able to discover some of the interlocking relationships between the banking and trust houses and the various companies, and also the interlocking directorships and trusts which he asserted controlled the newly discovered empire.
He was also able to determine, at least some, if not all the information the true net value of the companies and their incomes and asset. From this sparse information, he concluded that the directors and trustees who he named in the report had control over assets worth approximately $22,245,000,000.
$22,245,000,000 in 1913 → $564,229,819,696.97 in 2018
Through the normal course of inflation, let alone the growth of the companies themselves, the value of these assets today can only be wildly guess. The one thing that always alluded Pujo's search was that (1)one little lone French man owned and controlled all that he was investigating and that the mans name was Lewis Cass Payseur and (2) J.P. Morgan was his front man and trusted friend.The following is a brief overview of just some of the highlights of the 258 page report prepared by the committee.
The resources of the banks and trust company of the city of New York on 1911 were $5,121,245,175, which is 21.73 per cent of the total banking resources of the country as reported by the comptroller of the currency. This takes no account of the unknown resources of the great private banking houses whose affiliations to the New York financial institutions we are about to discuss.
That in recent years concentration of control of the banking resources and consequently of credit by the groups to which we will refer has grown a place in the city of New York is defended by some witnesses and regretted by others, but acknowledged by all to be a fact. From statistics compiled by accountants for the committee, in 1911, of the total resources of the banks and trust companies in New York City, the 20 largest held 42.97 per cent; in 1906, the 20 largest held 38.24 per cent of the total; in 1901, 34,97 percent.
Section 3- Processes of Concentration
The increased concentration of control of money and credit was affected principally as follows:
First, consolidation of competitive or potentially competitive banks and trust companies were brought under sympathetic management.
Secondly, the same powerful interests became large stockholders in potentially competitive banks and trust companies.
This is the simplest way of acquiring control, but since it requires the largest investment of capital, it is the least used, although the recent investments in that direction for that apparent purpose amount to tens of millions of dollars in present market values.
Third, the confederation of potentially competitive banks and trust companies was accomplished by means of a system of interlocking directorates.
Fourth, the influence which the more powerful banking houses, banks, and trust companies secured in the management of insurance companies, railroads, producing and tracing corporations, and public utility corporations, by means of stockholding, voting trust, fiscal agency contracts, or representation upon their boards of directors, and through supplying the money requirements of railway, industrial, and public utilities corporations, enabled to participation in the determination of their financial and business policies.
Fifth, partnership or joint account arrangements between a few of the leading banking houses, banks, and trust companies in the purchase of security issues of the great interstate corporations, accompanied by understandings of recent growth, sometimes called "banking ethics." had the effect of effectually destroying competition between such banking houses, banks, and trust companies in the struggle for business or in the purchase and sale of large issues of such securities. [In other words the game is rigged DC]
Section 4 Agents of concentration
It is a fair deduction from the testimony that the most active agents in forwarding and bringing about the concentration of control of money and credit through one or another of the processes above described have been and are:
JP Morgan & Co
First National Bank of New York
National City Bank of New York
Lee, Higginson & Co., of Boston and New York
Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
First-Banking Resources:
The total resources of Morgan & Co. are unknown; its deposits are $163,000,000. The resources of the First National Bank are $150,000,000. and those of its appendage, the First Security Co., at a very low estimate, are $35,000,000. The resources of the National City Bank are $274,000,000. Those of its appendage, the National City Co.. are unknown, though the capital of the latter is alone $10,000,000. Thus, leaving out of account the very considerable part which is unknown, the institutions composing this group have resources of upward of $632,000,000. aside from the vast individual resources of Messers. Morgan. Baker, and Stillman.
Further, as heretofore shown, the members of this group, through stock holdings, voting trust, interlocking directorates, and other relations, have become in some cases the absolutely dominant factor, in others the most important single factor, in the control of the following banks and trust companies in the city of New York:
Bankers Trust Co.
resources $250,000,000.
Guaranty Trust Co.
resources 232,000,000.
Astor Trust Co.
resources 27,000,000.
National Bank of Commerce
resources 190,000,000.
Liberty Nation Bank
resources 29,000,000.
Chase National Bank
resources 150,000,000.
Farmers Loan and Trust Co.
resources 135.000.000.
In all. seven companies with total resources of: $968,000,000. which, added to the known resources of members of the group themselves, makes: $1,600,000,000. As the aggregate of known banking resources in the city of New York under their control or influence.
If the resources of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (controlled through stock ownership of J.P. Morgan. $504.000.000. the amount becomes: $2,104,000,000.
Second, as regards the greater
transportation systems.
(a) Adams Express Co.: Members of the group have two representatives in the directorate of this company.
(b) Anthracite Coal Carriers: With the exception of the Pennsylvania, the Reading, The Central of New Jersey ( a majority of whose stock is owned by the Reading ), the Lehigh valley, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie Railroad ( controlling the New York Susquehanna & Western), and the New York, Ontario & Western afford the only transportation outlets from the anthracite coal fields.
As before stated. they transport 80 per cent of the output moving from the mines and own and control 88 per cent of the entire deposits. The Reading, as now organized, is the creation of a member of this banking group, Morgan&Co.
One or more members of the group are stockholders in that system and have two representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Central of New Jersey and have four representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Lehigh Valley and have four representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and have nine representatives in its directorate; are stockholders of the Erie, and have four representatives in its directorate: have two representatives in the directorate of the New York, Ontario & Western; and have purchased or marketed practically all security issues made by these railroads in recent years.
(c) Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe Railway: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have two representatives in the directorate of the company; and since 1907 have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $107,244,000.
(d) Chesapeake & Ohio Railway: Members of the group have two directors in common with this company ; and since 1907, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $85,000,000.
(e) Chicago Great Western Railway: Members of the group absolutely control this system through a voting trust.
(f )Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway: Members of the group have three directors or officers in common with this company, and since 1909, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $112.000,000.
(g) Chicago & Northwestern Railway: Members of the group have three directors in common with this company, and since 1909, in association with others, have purchased or procured the marketing of its security issues to the amount of $31,250,000.
(h) Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway: Members of the group have four directors in common with this company.
(i) Great Northern Railway: One or more members of the group are stockholders of and have marketed the only issue of bonds made by this company.
(j) International Mercantile Marine Co.; A member of the group organized this company, is a stockholder, dominates it through a voting trust, and markets its securities.
(k) New York Central Lines: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have four representatives in the directorate of the company, and since 1907 have purchased from or marketed for it and its principal subsidiaries security issued to the extent of $343.000.000, one member of the group being the company's sole fiscal agent.
(l) New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad: One or more members of the group are stockholders and have three representatives in the directorate of the company, and since 1907 have purchased from or marketed for it and its principal subsidiaries security issued in excess of $150,000,000. one member of the group being the company's sole fiscal agent.
(m) Northern Pacific Railway: One member of the group organized this company and is its fiscal agent, and one or more members are stockholders and have six representatives in its directorate and three in its executive committee.
(n) Southern Railway: Through a voting trust, members of the group have absolutely controlled this company since its reorganization in 1894
(o) Southern Pacific Co: Until its separation from the Union Pacific, lately ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States, members of the group had three directors in common with this company.
(p) Union Pacific Railroad: Members of the group have three directors in common with this company.
Third, as regards the greater
producing and trading corporations.
(1) Amalgamated Copper Co.: One member of the group took part in the organization of the company, still has one leading director in common with it, and markets its securities.
(2) American Can Co.: Members of the group have two directors in common with this company.
(3) J. L. Case Threshing Machine Co.: The president of one member of the group is a voting trustee of this company and the group also has one representative in its directorate and markets its securities.
(4) William Cramp Ship & Engine Building Co.: Members of the group absolutely control this company through a voting trust.
(5) General Electric Co.: A member of the group was one of the organizers of the company, is a stockholder, and has always had two representatives in its directorate and markets its securities.
(6) International Harvester Co.: A member of the group organized the company, named its directorate and the chairman of its finance committee, directed its management, through a voting trust, and markets its securities.
(7) Lackawanna Steel Co.: Members of the group have four directors in common with the company and, with associates, marketed its last issue of securities.
(8) Pullman Co.: The group has two representatives, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Baker, in the directorate of this company.
(9) United States Steel Corporation: A member of the group organized this company, named its directorate, and the chairman of its finance committee which also has the powers of an executive committee is its sole fiscal agent and a stockholder, and has always controlled its management.
Fourth , as regards the great
public utility corporations:
(1) American Telephone and Telegraph Co.: One or more members of the group are stockholders, have three representatives in its directorate, and since 1906, with other associates, have marketed for it and its subsidiaries security issued in excess of $300,000,000.
(2) Chicago Elevated Railways: A member of the group has two officers or directors in common with the company, and in conjunction with others marketed for it in 1911 security issues amounting to $66,000,000.
(3) Consolidated Gas Co. of New York: Members of the group control this company through majority representation on its directorate.
(4) Hudson & Manhattan Railroad: One or more members of the group marketed and have large interest in the securities of this company, though its debt is now being adjusted by Kuhn. Loeb & Co.
(5) Interborough Rapid Transit Co. of New York: A member of the group is the banker of this company, and the group has agreed to market its impending bond issue of $170,000,000.
(6) Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.: Members of the group have two representatives in the directorate of this company.
(7) Western Union Telegraph Co.: Members of the group have seven representatives in the directorate of this company.
The following is a list of the remaining companies that were owned by Lewis Cass Payseur and controlled by the Morgan Trust that the committee could find:
American Exchange National Bank of New York
Bank of Manhattan Company of New York
Central Trust Company of New York
Chemical National Bank of New York
Equitable Trust Company of New York
Fourth National Bank of New York
Hanover National Bank of New York
Mechanic and Metal National Bank of New York
National Bank of Commerce of New York
National Park Bank of New York
New York Trust Company of New Union Trust company of New York
U.S. Mortgage and Trust Company of New York
United States Trust Company of New York
American Security Trust company of Washington
Riggs National Bank of Washington
Mellon National Bank of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh, Pa.
Fourth Street National Bank of Philadelphia
Franklin National Bank of Philadelphia
Girard Trust Company of Philadelphia
Philadelphia National Bank of Philadelphia
Central Trust Company of Chicago
Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chicago
Continental Commercial Trust and Savings First National Bank of Chicago
First Trust and Saving Bank of Chicago
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago
Merchants Loan and Trust Company of Chicago
American Surety Company Continental Insurance Company
Fidelity and Casualty Company
Carman American Insurance Company
Home Insurance Company
Mutual Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance Company
Northwestern Mutual Life
Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company
Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company
Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company
Illinois Central Railroad Company
Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad Company
Missouri Pacific Railroad Company
Norfolk and Western Railroad Company
Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company
Wabash Railroad Company
Wells Fargo and Company
Âll American Agriculture and Chemical Company
American Beet Sugar Company
American Car and Foundry Company
American Locomotive Company
American Smelting and Refining Company
American Sugar Refining Company
Armour and Company
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Central Leather Company
Intercontinental Rubber Company
International Agriculture Corp.
International Nickel Company
International Paper Company
National Biscuit Company
U.S. Rubber Company
Westinghouse Electric and Mfg.Co.
Public Utilities Companies
(1) American Light and Traction Co.
(2) American Telephone and Telegraph
(3) Chicago Elevated Railways
(4) Commonwealth Edison Company
(5) Consolidated Gas Company
(6) Intarboro Transit
(7) International Tract Co.
(8) New York Railway Co.
(9) Philadelphia Co.
(10) Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.
(11) Public Service Corporation of New Jersey
(12) United Gas Co.
(13) Puget Sound Electric Co.
A summary' of directorships held by these members of the group. The combined directorships in the more important enterprises held by Morgan & Co., the First National Bank, the National City Bank, and the Bankers and Guaranty Trust Co. which latter two, as previously shown, are absolutely contorted by Morgan and Co. through voting trust. It appears there that firm members or directors of these institutions together hold:
One hundred and eighteen directorships in 34 banks and trust companies having total resources of $2.679,000,000 and total deposits of $1.983.000.000.
Thirty directorships in 10 insurance companies having total assets of $2,293,000,000.
One hundred and five directorships in 32 transportation systems having a total capitalization of $11,784,000,000 and a total mileage (excluding express companies and steamship lines) of 150,200.
Sixty-three directorships in 24 producing and trading corporations having a total capitalization of $3.339.000.000.
Twenty-five directorships in 12 public utility corporations having a total capitalization of $22,245,000,000.
In all, 341 directorships in 112 corporations having aggregate resources or capitalization of $42,340,000,000.
The members of the firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. held 72 directorships in 47 of the greater corporations;
George F. Baker, chairman of the board, F.L. Hine, president and George F. Baker, Jr. and C. D. Norton. Vice presidents, of the First National Bank of New York, hold 46 directorships in 37 of the greater corporations: and
James Stillman, chairman of the board, Frank a Vanderlip, president, and Samuel McRoberts, J. T. Talbert. W.A. Simonson, vice-presidents, of the National City Bank of New York, hold 32 directorships in 26 of the greater corporations; making in all for these members of the group 150 directorships in 110 of the greater corporations.
The committee never could get past the voting trust, to break the veil of secret ownership to all these companies plus many more there were 364, plus many more that were all owned by the Payseur family. Cross reference this list of companies with the chapter of "Assets of Lewis Cass Payseur" that were filed for probate in Alabama.
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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION ACT OF 1914
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