My story . g Rich-monds steep streets as easily as they glided along thelevel ones. Our report to the street railway companiesin which we were interested in several large cities wasquite different than we had expected it would be. At about the time I went into the St. Louis en4:erpriseI purchased a street railway franchise in Brooklyn whichlater became involved in litigation and was tied up inthe courts for a long time. Eventually I got my principaland interest back but no profits. Before the litigationI had sold a lot of bonds in this enterprise to some Louis-ville people. When the court proc
My story . g Rich-monds steep streets as easily as they glided along thelevel ones. Our report to the street railway companiesin which we were interested in several large cities wasquite different than we had expected it would be. At about the time I went into the St. Louis en4:erpriseI purchased a street railway franchise in Brooklyn whichlater became involved in litigation and was tied up inthe courts for a long time. Eventually I got my principaland interest back but no profits. Before the litigationI had sold a lot of bonds in this enterprise to some Louis-ville people. When the court proceedings threatened pro-tracted delay I bought back all these bonds at a higherprice than the purchasers had paid for them. I wasunder no legal obligation to do this, of course; and myreasons for doing it were purely selfish. First, I couldntendure the thought of having persons who had investedbecause of their faith in me lose, and second, it was betterfor my future credit to retain their confidence. Perhaps. T«M L. JOHNSON AT THIRTY-TWO •Protected now by special grants in the highway, by the tariff and by land monopolymy training as a monopolist had gone far< THE TRAINING OF A MONOPOLIST 33 I myself thought I was acting generously, so frequentlyare motives inspired by business interests mistaken forpersonal virtues. Once or twice in my life I have been forced to take overthe management of a street railroad that didnt pay, butin these cases I had no hand in the original acquisitionof the properties. I never made an unfortunate streetrailroad investment. Our contract with the Cambria people proved so profita-ble that we presently decided to build our own rolling-mill. Though this decision cost the Cambria an excel-lent customer, they cooperated with us in every way inbuilding our plant which was situated in the center of alarge level tract of land in a new suburb known as Mox-ham. We had purchased all the land in that localitywhich was suitable for building purposes, and ou
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