The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-09-25
Vanderbilt Ready TO
1.'hrowB. & A.Lease
Overheard.
He RESENTS INTERFERENCE.
The Central May Now Take
on the Fitchburg
Road.
The New York Times of Sunday says:-

The New York Times of Sunday says:-
William K Vanderbilt is credited with
having just directed some correspondence
to financial interests in Boston which will
be easy to understand The New York
Central management is resenting inter
ference with its Boston & Albany con-
tract, and Mr.. Vanderbilt has notified
parties in interest that he is ready to
abandon the entire deal-in short to throw
it overheard.
The communications sent to Boston are
practically to that effect, and Mr.. VAN
derbilt and his associates have announced
that they will not exercise any of their
purchase options on Boston s. Albany
stock.
Boston people, opposed to the lease,
have during the last few days purchased
this stock, not knowing that It was the
very property on which Vanderbilt OPP
lions had been voluntarily cancelled. Mr..
Vanderbilt is said to have stated to his
friends that, having raised this opposition,
which to him seeped to have been begot-
ten of extraordinary avarice the Boston
stockholders could keep their property
He is said also to have given 1t as his
opinion that in the future the Boston &
Albany might have to depend principally
on its local traffic for its patronage and
support.
| the F1tchburg. That is the keynote OF
| the situation now-and that the signih-
canoe Of the remarks and Of the CORE
| spondence. The truth is that, from the
| Vanderbilt standpoint, the expectation
was that the criticism against the lease
| would be much more vehement in New
| York than elsewhere for the reason that
| New York might have reason to believe
| that western business in large volume
would be sent to Boston, where the ter
minal charges are less, and the commerce
of Boston built up at the expense Of New
York. As it happened, New York criti-
cism was not heard in any consequential
way, while in Boston the criticism was
bitter, fomented as alleged. by politi-
clans.
1t might have been that if Mr.. Wander
bilt had abandoned his Boston and Al
bany ambitions some time ago or had
not seriously gone ahead to make the
lease the Boston and Albany might have
fallen into the hands of the New York
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. That
company more than once in recent years
has made proposals looking to deal
practically the same as that negotiated
| by Messrs. Vanderbilt and Twombly
Thus, when the New York Centraps sue
cess was announced by the official dec
laration of the Boston and Albany direc-
tors in favor of it. there was in the rail
way world a variety of sensations Some
thing was made of the fact that the New
York Central coup had been made posi-
BILE by the absence in Europe of President
Clark of the New Haven company.
4 In number of instances in recent years
| the relations between the New York, New
| Haven and Hartford and the New York
Central have been much strained, and
| Wall street for q time held to the opinion
that Mr.. Vanderbilt had outgeneraled j.
| p. Morgan, whose interests are supposed
| to be larger in the New York New Haven
and Hartford than in the New York Cen
| trail.
But last week came an event which
very much modified Wall street calcula-
lions along these lines, for as the imme-
date successor to Cornelius Vanderbilt in
| the board of directors Of the New York
| Central, w K. Vanderbilt selected Will
liam Rockefeller, with whom the Wander
bilt fortunes have not been linked, but
who is in Wall street now recognized as
| among the foremost of ]. p. Morgan's
personal friends and financial associates,
| holding with Mr.. Morgan much the
| largest ownership of securities Of the
| New York, New Haven and Hartford
| Railroad.
There will not be in Wall street lack of
theories suggesting that as a sequel to
| the new situation in the affairs of the
Boston and Albany there may be even
merger brought about between the New
York Central and the New Haven sys-
| tens. The certain results of this would
be that other. and lesser New England
roads would naturally fall under the same
ownership.