broker to number Jay Gould among his customers and to inspire a
prophecy by William C. Whitney that, if he retained his health,
he would become one of the richest men in the country.
Afterwards, when he knew him more intimately, Whitney elaborated
this estimate by saying that Ryan was "the most adroit, suave,
and noiseless man he had ever known." Ryan had two compelling
traits that soon won for him these influential admirers. First of
all was his marvelous industry. His genius was not spasmodic. He
worked steadily, regularly, never losing a moment, never getting
excited, going, day after day, the same monotonous dog-trot,
easily outdistancing scores of apparently stronger men. He also
had the indispensable faculty of silence. He has always been the
least talkative man in Wall Street, but, with all his reserve, he
has remained the soul of courtesy and outward good nature.

Here, then, we have the characters of this great impending
drama--Yerkes in Chicago, Widener and Elkins in Philadelphia,
Whitney and Ryan in New York. These five men did not invariably
work as a unit. Yerkes, though he had considerable interest in
Philadelphia, which had been the scene of his earliest exploits,
limited his activities largely to Chicago. Widener and Elkins,
however, not only dominated Philadelphia traction but
participated in all of Yerkes's enterprises in Chicago and held
an equal interest with Whitney and Ryan in New York. The latter
Metropolitan pair, though they confined their interest chiefly to
their own city, at times transferred their attention to Chicago.
Thus, for nearly thirty years, these five men found their oyster
in the transit systems of America's three greatest cities--and,
for that matter, in many others also.