Nickel Plate

The Van Sweringen brothers are patient men, and apparently their patience is about to be rewarded in the actual realization of their plans for the great Nickel Plate merger. Arguments tor further delay made by minority Chesapeake & Ohio stockholders have been denied by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which has bgun to consider the merger officially. Its approval will remove the last important barrier to effecting the consolidation.

So far, the Van Sweringens seem to have played their cards well. Directorates and stockholders of the constituent roads, and state railroad commissions (even that of Virginia) have been led to approve their plans. The only hostile faction to it consists of the minority C. & O. stockholders and perhaps the Pennsylvania R. R.

It was at the latter that Thomas C Powell, Erie Vice President and star witness for the merger promoters, apparently aimed his telling testimony, order to prove that the merger would increase competition rather than monopolize, he pointed out that the new Nickel Plate will touch 28 cities of over 75,000 population, whose aggregate population is 17465,000. The similar figures for rival and competing systems are: New York Central, 30 such cities with 17,655,000 total population; B. & U., 1 cities with 17,266,000; and Pennsylvania, 35 cities with 19,876,000. The implication was that the Pennsylvania was already the largest and most favored system and therefore should be least inclined to grudge the acquisition of new lines by its competitors.