Young Cornelius, in his work as a machinist and office clerk, presents
an example which other sons of millionaires could follow with profit.
He is not alone, however, among young men of his class in training
for a useful life. One of New York’s richest young men is said to be
not only a worker, but an authority on mechanics, and is able both
to roll up his shirt-sleeves and go to the bench, and to describe in
the minutest detail the work on which he is engaged. His ability in
the mechanical line would probably have won wealth and success for
him, even had he not been born to a vast fortune. At the same time,
the course of the next in succession to the control of the Vanderbilt
millions, in entering upon an education in skilled labor as a common
workingman, is an excellent assurance that the family stock is not
degenerating, and that its interests are in trustworthy hands.
The ambition of Commodore Vanderbilt to establish and perpetuate a
great railway empire seems likely to be fulfilled, so far as the
present and the rising generation of the Vanderbilts are concerned. It
is the most remarkable experiment of the kind since the beginning of
the American republic.