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Louis Houck: Opponent and Imitator of Jay Gould
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Abstract
History has recorded many instances where inconspicuous competitive units have achieved success in opposing mighty combinations of power. The thesis has been voiced that even in periods of wildest competition the small businessman has not been entirely hapless. His size has been a political asset, and very early he learned to exploit that asset to the utmost. Louis Houck, the Missouri railroader, played the part of David; his Goliath was none other than Jay Gould. Houck not only made capital of his economic vulnerability, but boldly employed the very tactics for which the public was condemning his formidable adversary.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1956
References
1 St. Louis Republic, June 7, 1896.
2 Ibid., June 10, 1896.
3 See Adams, Charles F. Jr., and Adams, Henry, Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (New York, 1886Google Scholar); and Kirkland, Edward Chase, Men, Cities and Transportation (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1948), particularly Vol. II, 454–74Google Scholar.
4 Kirkland, op. cit., 467-68. For Houck's ancestry, consult Who's Who in America, 1924-25, p. 1,634.
5 7th Annual Report of Railroad Commissioners of Missouri, 1881, p. 33.
6 Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Tiger, March, 1941. Feature story in a high school newspaper by the daughter of Houck's secretary-auditor.
7 The first railroad consisted of the Cape Girardeau Railway Company, the Cape Girardeau and State Line Railway Company, the Cape Girardeau Southwestern Railway Company, and the St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and Fort Smith Railway Company. Information obtained from Reports of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners of Missouri and Poor's Manual of Railroads for dates indicated above.
8 The second system consisted of the St. Louis, Kennett and Southern, the Pemiscot Railroad Company, the Kennett and Osceola Railroad, the St. François Valley Railroad, the Pemiscot Southern, the Clarkton Branch Railroad and Houck's Missouri and Arkansas, Morley and Morehouse, St. Louis, Morehouse and Southern, Cape Girardeau, Bloomfield, and Southern. These companies were consolidated into the St. Louis and Gulf before sold to the St. Louis-San Francisco system. Information obtained from Reports of Railroads and Warehouse Commissioners of Missouri and Poor's Manual of Railroads for dates indicated above.
9 The third system included the Chester, Perryville, Ste. Genevieve and Farmington Railway Company, the Chester, Perryville, and Ste. Genevieve Railroad Company, the St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Southern, the Cape Girardeau and Thebes Bridge Terminal Railroad Company, the Cape Girardeau and Chester Railroad, the Saline Valley Railroad. Information obtained from Reports of Railroads and Warehouse Commissioners of Missouri and Poor's Manual of Railroads for dates indicated above.
10 This involved the promotion of the Grand Tower and Cape Girardeau Railroad Company and the Grand Tower and Carbondale Railroad Company of Illinois. See Poor's Manual of Railroads, 1890, p. 862.
11 See Cape Girardeau Democrat, Jan. 21, 1899, and Henry Wollman, Commercial Law Journal, June, 1933, p. 14, about the ending of the first system; St. Louis Post Dispatch, Jan. 11, 1914, and 51st Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States, 1937, p. 247, for the ending of the Cape Girardeau Northern; Cape Girardeau Democrat, May 3, 1902, and Ripley, William Z., Railroads, Finance, and Organization (New York, 1915), p. 41Google Scholar, for the sale of the St. Louis and Gulf.
12 Missouri Republican, Aug. 12, 1869.
13 Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau, Missouri), June 28, 1933Google Scholar. These were the descriptive words of Henry Wollman, a lawyer who represented the interests of the Goulds at the time of the purchase of Houck's first system in 1899.
14 The John Eddy Franklin memoirs published in The Democrat Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri), July 14, 1946Google Scholar.
15 Cape Girardeau Democrat, March 6, 1897.
16 Statements and Testimony of Railroad Managers, 34th General Assembly of Missouri (Jefferson City, Mo., 1887), 346–47Google Scholar.
17 See Houck, Louis, A Treatise on the Mechanics Lien Law in the United States (Chicago, 1867Google Scholar); editor, Missouri Reports, 1835-37 (15 vols.; Belleville, Ill., 1870Google Scholar); The Boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase (St. Louis, 1901Google Scholar); History of Missouri (3 vols.; Chicago, 1908Google Scholar); The Spanish Regime (2 vols.; Chicago, 1909Google Scholar).
18 The following Supreme Court cases, widely reported in the Missouri press, were concerned with the fight between Houck and Gould over the possession of the one-hundred-mile Cape Girardeau railroad: “The State ex rel Klotz vs. Ross, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 118, Nov. 9, 1893, 23–79Google Scholar; “The State ex rel Merriam, Petitioner, vs. Ross, Judge, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 122, June 4, 1894, 435–78Google Scholar; “Merriam vs. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Fort Smith Railway, et al., Appellants,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 126, Jan. 22, 1895, 445–48Google Scholar; “Missouri ex rel Merriam vs. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Fort Smith Railway Company,” The United States Supreme Court Reports, Vol. 156, March 4, 1895, 478–85Google Scholar; “Merriam vs. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Fort Smith Railway,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 136, Dec. 1, 1896, 145–69Google Scholar; “State ex rel Merriam vs. Ross et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 136, Dec. 1, 1896, 259–75Google Scholar.
19 See interview of Houck in St. Louis Republic, March 15, 1893; also see Robert G. Ranney, “The City's Railroads,” City Directory of Cape Girardeau of 1906, p. 202.
20 Cape Girardeau Democrat, June 22, 1896.
21 See “St. Louis, Kennett and Southern Railroad Company, et al., vs. Wear, Judge, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 135, June 30, 1896, 230–69Google Scholar. Also see St. Louis Globe Democrat, June 16, 1896; St. Louis Republic, June 7 and 10, 1896.
22 St. Louis Republic, June 10, 1896.
23 See Houck's comment about the Fordyce connections with the Gould interests, St. Louis Republic, June 10, 1896.
24 Account is from an unidentified newspaper source, undoubtedly a Kennett, Missouri, newspaper, located in the library of Southeast Missouri State College, Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Also see anniversary edition of The Dunklin Democrat (Kennett, Missouri), April 19, 1938Google Scholar.
25 Cape Girardeau Democrat, June 27, 1896.
26 Ibid., July 18, 1896.
27 17th Annual Report of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners of Missouri, 1891, p. 280.
28 Charleston Enterprise Courier (Charleston, Missouri), Feb. 26, 1925Google Scholar, reprinted in the Missouri Historical Review, XXI, 133.
29 33rd Annual Report of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners of Missouri, 1908, p. 127.
30 Lopata, Edwin L., Local Aid to Railroads in Missouri (New York, 1937), 130Google Scholar.
31 “Cape Girardeau Southwestern Railway Company, Appellant, vs. Hatton, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 102, 55Google Scholar.
32 The following Supreme Court cases are concerned with Houck's attempted land bonus: “The State ex rel Board of Education, Appellant, vs. County Court of Wayne County,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 98 (1889), 362–68Google Scholar; “Cape Girardeau Southwestern Railway Company, Appellant, vs. Hatton, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 102 (Oct., 1890), 45–56Google Scholar; “The William Brown Estate Company, Appellant, vs. Wayne County,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 123 (June 25, 1894), 464–79Google Scholar; “The St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Fort Smith Railway, Appellant, vs. Wayne County,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 125 (Dec. 4, 1894), 351–58Google Scholar.
33 See the John Eddy Franklin memoirs published in The Democrat Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri), running from June 15, 1946Google Scholar, to Aug. 2, 1946.
34 Located on the line of Houck's first system were the William Brown stave factory and the T. J. Moss railroad tie company; on the line of the second system were to be found Gideon and Anderson, sawmill promoters, the Himmelberger-Luce timber interests, C. A. Boynton, owner of sawmills and planing mills, and the Deering lumber interests; on the line of the third system, the Byrd milling interests.
35 See Cape Girardeau Democrat, March 11, 1905, and the Joseph L. Moore reminiscences in the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian, March 21, 1934.
36 A quarrel involving Houck with all other major concerns in southern Missouri over location of a railroad bridge can be found in the following cases: “Southern Illinois and Missouri Bridge Company, Appellant, vs. Stone, et al.,” Missouri Reports, Vol. 174 (April 1, 1903), 1–53Google Scholar; Missouri Reports, Vol. 194 (Feb. 26, 1906), 175–89Google Scholar.
37 St. Louis Globe Democrat, Sept. 16, 1891, and Cape Girardeau Democrat, Sept. 18, 1891.
38 Cape Girardeau Democrat, April 12, 1902, Sept. 6, 1902.
39 St. Louis Post Dispatch, Jan. 11, 1914.
40 Cape Girardeau Democrat, Sept. 6 and 13, 1902; St. Louis Republic, Nov. 4, 1902; Weekly Republican (Cape Girardeau, Missouri), Dec. 6, 1912Google Scholar.
41 See the Smith, E. H. reminiscences, Charleston Enterprise Courier (Charleston, Missouri), Feb. 26, 1925Google Scholar, for statement of Houck's unfulfilled railroad projects for southern Missouri.
42 For such examples, see St. Louis Post Dispatch, Feb. 21, 1925; March 1, 1925; June 1, 1929; St. Louis Star, Feb. 21, 1925; The Missouri Historical Review, XIX (1925), 475–76Google Scholar.