most active force in Cleveland railways, was also the political
boss of the State. Roswell P. Flower, chief agent in developing
Brooklyn Rapid Transit, had been Governor of New York; Patrick
Calhoun, who monopolized the utilities of San Francisco and other
cities, presided likewise over the city's inner politics. The
Public Service Corporation of New Jersey also comprised a large
political power in city and state politics. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that in the most active period, that from
1880 to 1905, the powers that developed city railway and lighting
companies in American cities were identically the same owners
that had the most to do with city government. In the minds of
these men politics was necessarily as much a part of their
business as trolley poles and steel rails. This type of
capitalist existed only on public franchises--the right to occupy
the public streets with their trolley cars, gas mains, and
electric light conduits; they could obtain these privileges only
from complaisant city governments, and the simplest way to obtain
them was to control these governments themselves. Herein we have
the simple formula which made possible one of the most profitable
and one of the most adventurous undertakings of our time.

An attempt to relate the history of all these syndicates would
involve endless repetition. If we have the history of one we have
the history of practically all. I have therefore selected, as
typical, the operations of the group that developed the street
railways and, to a certain extent, the public lighting
companies, in our three greatest American cities--New York,
Chicago, and Philadelphia.

One of the men who started these enterprises actually had a