of the great individual fortunes from railroads, it is advisable to
present a preliminary survey of the concatenating circumstances
leading up to the time when these vast fortunes were rolled together.
Without this explanation, this work would be deficient in clarity,
and would leave unelucidated many important points, the absence of
which might puzzle or vex the reader.

Although industrial establishments, as exemplified by mills,
factories and shops, much preceded the construction of railroads, yet
the next great group of fortunes to develop after, and along with,
those from land were the fortunes plucked from the control and
manipulation of railroad systems.


THE LAGGING FACTORY FORTUNES.

Under the first stages of the old chaotic competitive system, in
which factory warred against factory, and an intense struggle for
survival and ascendency enveloped the whole tense sphere of
manufacturing, no striking industrial fortunes were made.

Fortunate was that factory owner regarded who could claim $250,000
clear. All of those modern and complex factors offering such
unbounded opportunities for gathering in spoils mounting into the
hundreds of millions of dollars, were either unknown or in an
inchoate or rudimentary state. Invention, if we may put it so, was
just blossoming forth. Hand labor was largely prevalent. Huge
combinations were undreamed of; paper capitalization as embodied in
the fictitious issues of immense quantities of bonds and stocks was
not yet a part of the devices of the factory owner, although it was a