The Robber Barons of the Rails

The world's autocrats are no longer men who can handle armies, but the masters of steamships and railways. As some writer has said, when Tom Scott makes a flying trip from New York to Washington, he tips the world with him as he goes. Vanderbilt, Gould, Scott, and Stanford wield more power than many an Eastern king. But the name of Trenor W. Park has of late begun to loom up prominently as a mover on the transportation chessboard. This gentleman is a Vermonter by birth, and an early California pioneer. He was originally associated with General Henry W. Halleck and Frederic Billings in the practice of law in San Francisco, until about the period of his connection with John C. Fremont's celebrated Mariposa estate, which he settled up. He realized a very handsome sum as the remuneration of his labors out of that great wreck. He afterward ran for the United States Senate in the campaign which resulted in the election of John Conness, twelve or thirteen years ago, and failed in his canvass. He left California and returned to Vermont, where he soon began to figure as the president of the Vermont Central Railroad. His recent prominence in connection with Schenck and Stewart, in the 'Emma Mine' affair, is perhaps more notorious than enviable, but his success in maneuvering for the mastery of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company proves him to be a no less skillful than daring operator.