Very interesting book on the four powerful men who established the Central Pacific in California and built a big part of the transcontinental RR. It later became the Southern Pacific. ( )

The Big Four were Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington. They were they organizers and founders of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. They first came together to build and manage the Central Pacific Railroad which was the western part of the first transcontinental railroad finished in 1869. The Big Four became some of the richest and most powerful men in the whole country. This they achieved by a combination of efficient organization, ruthless competition, bribery and corruption. The corporations they controlled probably bought and owned more elected officials than ever before or since. In the 19th century it seemed that they bought every elected official in California.
The excesses of the Southern Pacific Railroad let to eventual regulation of transportation and commerce. Before controls on monopolies the Big Four set their freight charges to all "all the traffic would bear. They they kept their high rates just low enough that the merchants and farmers of California would not go bankrupt. It is no wonder that all four were so hated by the majority of the populace.
In spite of their practices they did some good. Leland Stanford is remembered for the University he endowed in memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. University. Crocker lives on in the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and Huntington in the Huntington Library in Southern California. Mark Hopkins was no philanthropist but his name is memorialized in a San Francisco Hotel.
Oscar Lewis wrote The Big Four in 1938. At that time the excessive power of corporations had been limited by regulations. Now that power is back and Big Four reads like a very contemporary book.







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