Word: railroads
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Robert Ralph Young was a bantamweight scrapper (135 Ibs.) with heavyweight ideas, who came out of obscurity as a Wall Street speculator to become the most powerful and most debated railroad tycoon of his day. As board chairman of the New York Central, the nation's second biggest railroad, and an important voice in several other roads, Bob Young had collected all the prizes of a champion battler: wealth, power, glittering friends (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor et al.), palatial homes in Palm Beach and Newport...
High on the Hog. Taking over as chairman of the C. & O., he cashed in on the war-brought prosperity of the railroads. Flush with millions, he began the bitter attacks on the railroad industry that marked his stormy career from then on, launched a publicity campaign whose high point was the famous newspaper ad that said: "A hog can cross the country without changing trains-but you can't." He lashed out fiercely at "goddam bankers" (his favorite phrase) for their control of the railroads, set himself up as the champion of the people in a crusade...
...Young was a man of grandiose ideas and supreme self-confidence who felt it his destiny to create a great transcontinental railroad system that would put to shame the 19th century railroad empires of Harriman, Vanderbilt and Gould. The keystone would be the Central. But it was not until 1954 that he was ready to move in for the kill. Quietly he had bought up stock, then loudly bombarded the Central with newspaper ads attacking its operating policies. Gradually, he softened confidence in the Central's management until he finally captured the road with the help of a dazzling...
Down the Road. Bob Young's golden moment soon passed. Like every other U.S. road, the Central was caught in the nationwide rail slump. Fortnight ago the Central's directors voted not to pay the quarterly dividend. The railroad's earnings had plummeted along with the stock, which reached a low of 13¼ last week. Bob Young, who had borrowed heavilyto buy the 100,000 shares of Central stock he owned, was forced by lenders to sell as the price skidded lower. By year's end he had unloaded all but a few thousand...
Died. Robert Ralph Young, 60, railroad tycoon; by his own hand (gunshot); in Palm Beach, Fla. (see BUSINESS...