I was able to reassure him by saying that the only railroad company I would be president of would be one I owned.
Strange what changes the whirligig of time brings in.

It was my part one morning in 1900, some thirty years afterwards, to tell the son of Mr.Gould of his father's offer and to say to him: "Your father offered me control of the great Pennsylvania system.

Now I offer his son in return the control of an international line from ocean to ocean." The son and I agreed upon the first step--that was the bringing of his Wabash line to Pittsburgh.

This was successfully done under a contract given the Wabash of one third of the traffic of our steel company.

We were about to take up the eastern extension from Pittsburgh to the Atlantic when Mr.Morgan approached me in March, 1901, through Mr.
Schwab, and asked if I really wished to retire from business.