would not abandon the A&P as long as it served to increase his personal wealth through the stock market. Western Union showed no signs of breaking, but on January 4, 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt died, and his business empire passed to his son William.
The consolidation of the A&P into Western Union was precipitated by negotiations involving the Michigan Central Railroad. William Vanderbilt, Gould, and Gould’s associate Sidney Dillon all owned large stakes in the Michigan Central, with the balance held by a banker named Moses Taylor. Vanderbilt wanted control of the Michigan Central but Taylor resisted. Gould realized that the shares held by Dillon and himself could give Vanderbilt control of the Michigan Central at the next board election. He could use the Gould-Dillon for Western Union’s purchase of his A&P. On August 14, 1877, Jay Gould and William consolidation, but a pooling arrangement whereby Western Union and the A&P would share their receipts for 20 years, with 87.5 percent to go to Western Union. With Western Union now owning slightly more than half of A&P’s stock, the two companies entered agreement.
merit a separate story to do history justice. Over the course of several years Gould and Eckert vigorously attacked Western Union with network expansion, rate wars, litigation, wars in the press, and even underhanded tactics, such as attempting to lure Thomas Edison by Edison for Western Union. Ultimately Western Union won the litigation battles, but Jay Gould won the war of personal enrichment when his A&P signed an agreement with and the Creation of American Corporate Order, 1845-1893, “if the only purpose for owning invest in the A&P and launch a rate war with Western Union. If, on the other hand, the at advantageous moments, Gould was a genius. It is all but certain that Gould aimed to decided to try it again, this time with a new company called the American Union Telegraph Company.
Jay Gould’s Second Telegraph War: The American Union Telegraph vs Western Union
The arrangement under which the A&P was brought into Western Union’s vast system in 1877 was a pooling agreement whereby the two companies did not merge under a single Eckert remained A&P’s president, but was now employed by the same managers that he in bitterness and resentment within the new “harmonious system.” During the transition Norvin Green became Western Union’s new president after William Orton died on April 22, 1878. Jay Gould had strongly lobbied for Eckert to be General Manager of the new system, but this did not happen. Gould later claimed that the failure to appoint his personal friend Eckert as manager of the new Western Union system led him to form American Union, a
42 Crown Jewels
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