President Frederick Douglass ("Fred") Underwood of the Erie sat in his Manhattan office last week. He had just resigned his job and those "mighty fine young men," Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and Mantis James Van Sweringen, had replaced him with President James J. Bernet of their Nickel Plate road. This was probably another move of the Van Sweringens towards their merger of the Nickel Plate, Erie, Chesapeake & Ohio, Pere Marquette and Hocking Valley roads into their Nickel Plate System, which the Interstate Commerce Commission thwarted last March (TIME, March 15). President Underwood...
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