Scott.
At the first opportunity we were ignominiously but deservedly expelled
from the Union Pacific board. It was a bitter dose for a young man to
swallow. And the transaction marked my first serious difference with a
man who up to that time had the greatest influence with me, the kind
and affectionate employer of my boyhood, Thomas A. Scott. Mr. Thomson
regretted the matter, but, as he said, having paid no attention to it
and having left the whole control of it in the hands of Mr. Scott and
myself, he presumed that I had thought best to sell out. For a time I
feared I had lost a valued friend in Levi P. Morton, of Morton, Bliss
& Co., who was interested in Union Pacific, but at last he found out
that I was innocent.
The negotiations concerning two and a half millions of bonds for the
construction of the Omaha Bridge were successful, and as these bonds
had been purchased by persons connected with the Union Pacific before
I had anything to do with the company, it was for them and not for the
Union Pacific Company that the negotiations were conducted. This was
not explained to me by the director who talked with me before I left
for London. Unfortunately, when I returned to New York I found that
the entire proceeds of the bonds, including my profit, had been
appropriated by the parties to pay their own debts, and I was thus
beaten out of a handsome sum, and had to credit to profit and loss my
expenses and time.
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