Invisible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland's Van Sweringen Brothers

10. Some Shadows Fleet By

114 • Invisible Giants Ten Some Shadows Fleet By Saturday, March 8, 1924, was a normal half-day in the New York Central’s new headquarters office building at 466 Lexington Avenue in New York. At about one o’clock, President Alfred Smith ended a meeting with one of his executives, George Harwood, put on his hat and coat, and left “full of his usual high spirits and joy of living,” as Harwood noted. Active and virile at age 60, Smith later joined a friend, Edward Hoopes, to go horseback riding in Central Park. He was cantering in the dark at about 6:30 P.M. when a woman horseback rider suddenly appeared in front of him on a cross path. Smith reined up sharply; his horse reared, and he was thrown off. His head and shoulders hit the ground first, his neck snapped, and he was dead. “One of the greatest railway executives of his day,” Railway Age magazine said in tribute, although, sadly, he was largely forgotten soon after.1 Given Smith’s age and physical vigor, the Central unsurprisingly was not prepared for the loss and had to quickly scramble for a successor. The leading candidate was finance Some Shadows Fleet By • 115 vice president Albert H. Harris, who had had his eyes on the job when Smith was chosen. In the interim, however, he had lost that ambition and demurred; instead, he recommended Patrick E. Crowley, the 59-year-old operating vice president. The choice of Crowley also followed the traditional railroad industry pattern of picking an operating man—as Smith had been—to run the company. Crowley was close to Smith’s age and shared a similar background; his own railroad career began at age 14 as a telegrapher for the Erie Railroad, and he had quickly worked his way up the New York Central’s operating ranks. But otherwise, Pat Crowley was everything Smith was not. A short, dapper, somewhat dour man, he was polite, kind, reticent , and low key. Not only did he lack Smith’s drive and vision (“a Milquetoast” said one railroad executive), but his experience and talents were limited to the narrower field of operating management. (Harris continued to handle the major corporate and financial matters.) Crowley was committed to continuing Smith’s projects but reluctant to reach out beyond them; he also continued the Central’s friendly relationship with the Vans, but at arm’s length. The personal rapport and enthusiastic support were gone.2 On the surface, losing Smith was more a personal blow than it was any serious future impediment. The Vans had grown up quickly under his tutelage and had benefited from A. H. Smith faced the cold in style as he inspected progress on a new cutoff line south of Castleton, New York, in December 1923—two and a half months before his fateful horseback ride. At left is George A. Harwood, his chief engineering assistant. H. H. Harwood, Jr., collection 116 • Invisible Giants the doors he had opened for them at the Morgan and Baker banks; his crucial aid in Cleveland also would not be undone. O. P. was certainly resourceful enough on his own anyway. But if nothing else, the end of the Smith era was symbolic. It may well have been simply coincidence, but Smith’s death signaled a subtle change in their fortunes. While their domains and power would continue to expand, their most lasting achievements were in the past; underlying their subsequent triumphs would be a succession of frustrations and misjudgments which would ultimately prove fatal. Be that as it may, the brothers were now powers in eastern railroading and peers of the traditional “big three” trunk systems. In addition, their acquisition spree had achieved its goals all too well. Their system was generally accepted as a fait accompli which effectively dismembered the Interstate Commerce Commission’s 1921 tentative plan. Their swift conquests had left many troublesome untied strings, however. First on the brothers’ minds was a consolidation of their four separate railroad companies. Their hastily acquired “system ” had to be physically unified and, not incidentally, the brothers had to be relieved of the weighty debt incurred in acquiring it. They had been able to load only so much onto the Nickel Plate directly, and altogether Vaness owed $33.8 million to the Morgan bank, their brokers, and others. Consolidation , in whatever form, required another confrontation with the ICC...