made secret overtures to the road, guaranteeing a vast amount of
business if he could get exceptionally low rates, and the illegal
compact was made. His competitors, undersold in the market, stood
no chance, and one by one they were crushed out of existence.
Ryder called these manouvres "business"; the world called them
brigandage. But the Colossus prospered and slowly built up the
foundations of the extraordinary fortune which is the talk and the
wonder of the world today. Master now of the oil situation, Ryder
succeeded in his ambition of organizing the Empire Trading
Company, the most powerful, the most secretive, and the most
wealthy business institution the commercial world has yet known.

Yet with all this success John Burkett Ryder was still not
content. He was now a rich man, richer by many millions that he
had dreamed he could ever be, but still he was unsatisfied. He
became money mad. He wanted to be richer still, to be the richest
man in the world, the richest man the world had ever known. And
the richer he got the stronger the idea grew upon him with all the
force of a morbid obsession. He thought of money by day, he dreamt
of it at night. No matter by what questionable device it was to be
procured, more gold and more must flow into his already
overflowing coffers. So each day, instead of spending the rest of
his years in peace, in the enjoyment of the wealth he had
accumulated, he went downtown like any twenty-dollar-a-week clerk
to the tall building in lower Broadway and, closeted with his
associates, toiled and plotted to make more money.

He acquired vast copper mines and secured control of this and that
railroad. He had invested heavily in the Southern and
Transcontinental road and was chairman of its board of directors.