[Footnote 31:  Colonel Thomas A. Scott left the Union Pacific in 1872.  The same year he became president of the Texas Pacific, and in 1874 president of the Pennsylvania.]

I told Mr. Scott that I had done my best to prevent him from beginning to construct a great railway before he had secured the necessary capital.  I had insisted that thousands of miles of railway lines could not be constructed by means of temporary loans.  Besides, I had paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars cash for an interest in it, which he told me upon my return from Europe he had reserved for me, although I had never approved the scheme.  But nothing in the world would ever induce me to be guilty of endorsing the paper of that construction company or of any other concern than our own firm.

I knew that it would be impossible for me to pay the Morgan loan in sixty days, or even to pay my proportion of it.  Besides, it was not that loan by itself, but the half-dozen other loans that would be required thereafter that had to be considered.  This marked another step in the total business separation which had to come between Mr. Scott and myself.  It gave more pain than all the financial trials to which I had been subjected up to that time.

It was not long after this meeting that the disaster came and the country was startled by the failure of those whom it had regarded as its strongest men.  I fear Mr. Scott’s premature death[32] can measurably be attributed to the humiliation which he had to bear.  He was a sensitive rather than a proud man, and his seemingly impending failure cut him to the quick.  Mr. McManus and Mr. Baird, partners in the enterprise, also soon passed away.  These two men were manufacturers like myself and in no position to engage in railway construction.

[Footnote 32:  Died May 21, 1881.]

The business man has no rock more dangerous to encounter in his career than this very one of endorsing commercial paper.  It can easily be avoided if he asks himself two questions:  Have I surplus means for all possible requirements which will enable me to pay without inconvenience the utmost sum for which I am liable under this endorsement?  Secondly:  Am I willing to lose this sum for the friend for whom I endorse?  If these two questions can be answered in the affirmative he may be permitted to oblige his friend, but not otherwise, if he be a wise man.  And if he can answer the first question in the affirmative it will be well for him to consider whether it would not be better then and there to pay the entire sum for which his name is asked.  I am sure it would be.  A man’s means are a trust to be sacredly held for his own creditors as long as he has debts and obligations.

Notwithstanding my refusal to endorse the Morgan renewal, I was invited to accompany the parties to New York next morning in their special car for the purpose of consultation.  This I was only too glad to do.  Anthony Drexel was also called in to accompany us.  During the journey Mr. McCullough remarked that he had been looking around the car and had made up his mind that there was only one sensible man in it; the rest had all been “fools.”  Here was “Andy” who had paid for his shares and did not owe a dollar or have any responsibility in the matter, and that was the position they all ought to have been in.