Saint Theodore prepares to slay a dragon . This brilliant cartoon combined the corporate components that made up the Terminal Railroad ’ s monopoly grip on freight and passengers crossing the Mississippi to and from St . Louis . Cartoon by Harry B . Martin , St . Louis Post-Dispatch , October 8 , 1905 , 29 .
After the statutory monopoly ended , Pierpont Morgan financed its replacement . In 1902 , he floated a $ 50 million bond issue ($ 1.86 billion in 2024 ) to buy Wiggins outright , enlarge St . Louis Union Station ( already the world ’ s largest ) and build new yards and belt routes for freight traffic in the area .
Morgan had earlier financed the creation of the Terminal Railroad Association ( TRRA ). It ran the bridge and nearly all services crossing the Mississippi . The 1902 prospectus bragged that the TRRA “ controls practically the only available entrance to St . Louis .” For Pierpont Morgan , consolidation and its profits were self-evidently good .
For President Theodore Roosevelt , however , the TRRA was a grasping monopoly bent on extracting wealth , not creating it . After four antitrust cases ( 1904 – 1912 ), the US Supreme Court split the baby , preserving the company while placing it under federal oversight .
The Gilded Age had never actually known laissez faire in practice . That bit of French masked the truth : capitalists of the era reliably leveraged state power to their own benefit . And sometimes to the benefit of the public . In the Progressive Era that followed , Americans demanded a compromise between private profit and public good — a tension that continues today .
The St . Louis Bridge provides a fine window into the Gilded Age . Why did the Morgans decide to sell a bridge ? Their motives reached beyond profit to a prescient grasp of risk and reward , a deep understanding of the British investor class , faith in progress through innovation and confidence in the boundless future of the United States . For a half-century , the Morgan banks guided the fortunes of the Eads Bridge , wielding their unique brand of finance capitalism and demonstrating how to create enduring value .
For 25 years , John K . ( Jack ) Brown taught history , applied ethics and writing in the Department of Science , Technology , and Society at the University of Virginia . This article draws from his new book , Spanning the Gilded Age : James Eads and the Great Steel Bridge . Among many topics , it offers fresh perspectives on the Morgans , Andrew Carnegie and finance in the Gilded Age , that epochal turning point that made America modern . More information can be found at www . greatsteelbridge . com .
www . MoAF . org | Summer 2024 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 37