ATDTDA (2): "criminal acts of the rich" (32.21)

[Tim Strzechowski]

"You have to have some idea of the idle money out here [...] in these times, 'need' arises directly from criminal acts of the rich, so it 'deserves' whatever amount of money will atone for it" (p. 32).

 
[...] Thus the Gilded Age rolled on and railroad construction, finance, operation and consolidation created millionaire estates on a scale never seen before. Among the great railroad tycoons, certain are remembered for the great systems they built; Cyrus K. Holliday for his Santa Fe, John Murray Forbes for the Burlington. Others became famous for the wealth they accumulated : the Vanderbilts, Russell Sage and John Insley Blair. There were those enriched by alleged privateering on government funds; the Pacific Quartett and the Credit Mobilier ring. And some idealistic souls like Charles Francis Adams, who almost seemed lost among the sharks. Some successfully built profitable local roads into large regional systems without government support : Hill in the Northwest, Plant and Walters in the South East. Others piled up huge debts in schemes that ended little better than in bankruptcy : Cooke and later Villard, both with the Northern Pacific. Then there were those who managed to blow 
life into dying railroads, little better than rusted streaks, like Edward Henry Harriman and his turnaround of the Union Pacific. All these men had in common an outstanding sense for business in general and transportation in particular; all of them left lasting marks on the communities in which they acted and most of these men died very rich and left millions to their descendants. [...]

http://www.raken.com/American_wealth/railroad_barons/railroad_tycoons2.asp

http://www.raken.com/American_wealth/Gilded_age_index4.asp


See as well:

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/carnegie/DeLong_Moscow_paper2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=597


Does anyone know of a specific railroad tycoon from New Jersey to whom Scarsdale Vibe might be making reference here?