The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by T.J. Stiles

“You seem to be the idol of… a crawling swarm of small souls,” Mark Twain wrote in an open letter to Vanderbilt, “who… sing of your unimportant private habits and sayings and doings, as if your millions gave them dignity”

Pride is often the door to humiliation. The contrast between the captain’s ambitions and his actual status must have scraped his thin skin like sandpaper.

The very qualities that made Vanderbilt a formidable businessman—his ferocity, his obsession with control—left him unable to manage the murkier negotiations of love, affection, and fatherhood.

The success of Vanderbilt’s Nicaragua venture had national consequences. Simply put, he helped transform a rush for gold into the lasting establishment of American civilization on the Pacific. By steeply reducing fares and offering faster service, Vanderbilt sped up the flow of migrants to the West and gold to the East, where it had a significant impact on the economy. And he did it not only without a federal subsidy, but in competition with the subsidized line.

Vanderbilt’s discovery of this treachery provided the context for what is said to be one of the most famous letters in the history of American business: “Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.”

Beyond all analysis of Vanderbilt’s historical role, it is worth remembering that men willingly followed this difficult, profane titan, even at the risk of their own lives. It was not because he was generous or kind, but because he was a man of genuine prowess. No one, they knew, understood steamships better; no one, they knew, was more willing to face personal danger; no one, they knew, was truer to his word. Vanderbilt was many things, not all of them admirable, but he was never a phony. Hated, revered, resented, he always commanded respect, even from his enemies.

Cynicism, of course, always seems to be the most sophisticated position to take; yet it is also the laziest (along with hero-worship, its direct opposite).

What Vanderbilt did was set general policies, as well as the overall tone of management. Any corporation has an internal culture shaped by the demands, directives, and expections that rain down from above. The Commodore created an atmosphere of efficiency, frugality and diligence, as well as swift retribution for dishonesty or sloth.