The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-03
Morgan Dodqed Gates.


 Up to quite lately the real reason of J. P. Margan's precipitancy in saddlng Erie with the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton-Pere Marquette system was known to comparatively few people in Wall street. The deal was vigorously combatted by President Underwood and others who are in his immediate sphere of influence, but the Underwood party was overridden by MT Morgan and his associate, Norman B. Ream. For year or more prior to the merger Erie had been slowly but surely working into a strong market position. Since then, how ever, the stock has been laggard and host of traders who had been looking for ward to a long and profitable campaign have become lukewarm as to the future of the property. They are saying that long suffering Erie in the fulfillment of a manifest pack horse destiny has again been plastered just as it was about to get out on the level. It now appears that MT. Morgan did the clustering under the impulse of semi-panic and as the best possible means of escape from an- other conflict with the awful John w. Gates For months Newman Erbe, Papa Zimmerman and Prince, the Boston bank CT, had been trying to work off their Pere Marquette combination on Morgan. The great financier had been dallying with them and holding them at arms length. He was indifferent to the verge of open hostility. but the Cincinnati-Bos- ton combination did not let go. One night word was brought to MT. Morgan that John w. Gates and his side partner, Ed win Hawley, were after the system, and that they had that very afternoon gone around to the office of Rollins & Co.,, the syndicate headquarters, with $500,O00 to make initial payment on a option which they had been negotiating for and which they expected to obtain. According to the story, the only reason they failed to consummate the deal was on account of the lateness of the hour. MT. Morgan went up into the air instantly. Ever since John w. Gates coup in Louisville and Nashville Mir. Morgan has been in deadly fear of the Chicago plunger. Af- ter he had cajoled Gates into the sur render of control of Louisville and Nash vile he sententiously announced that thereafter it would be unsafe to leave control of any railroad out over night, forgetting that he himself had tried not so very long before to buy control of St. Paul without consulting with it's man. agement. MT. Morgan is bitterly opposed to any outsider slipping in and buying any of his properties, but he Is not always so careful of the amenities where oth- CTS are concerned. It gave him a chill to think of Gates and Hawley grabbing off the Hamilton and Dayton Marquette and annexing 1t to "Clover Leaf, there by creating 6000-mile system in the mid dle west, which might be a disturber for years to come. He proceeded, therefore, without an instance delay to block the proposed deaL1 He put himself in com muncation with Rollins & Co. and with out serious difficulty got them to delay action with Gates and Hawley. Two or three days afterwards poor old Erie took over the struggling system at a price generally regarded as absurdly inflated.
 It now transpres that MT. Morgan was the victim of put-up job and that the Gates-Hawley play to buy the property was blum in the interest of the gen. tlemen composing the Rollins syndicate, and that in reality they had no intention of getting the roads or putting dollar in them. The joke. however, WE not so much on Morgan as 1t was on Bra