Carnegie lent his powerful support to George J.Gould, who was then extending his railroad system into the preempted field and was also making surveys and had financed a company to build an entirely new railroad from Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast.

As Carnegie himself controlled the larger part of the freight that made Pittsburgh such an essential feeder to railroads, his new enterprise caused the greatest alarm.

At the same time Carnegie equipped a new and splendid fleet of ore ships, his purpose being to enter a field of transportation which John D.Rockefeller had found extremely profitable.
Such were the circumstances and such were the motives that gave birth to the world's largest corporation.

All one night, so the story goes, Charles M.Schwab and John W.Gates discussed the steel situation with J.Pierpont Morgan.

There was only one possible solution, they said--Andrew Carnegie must be bought out.