Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1879 — The Vanderbilt Case. [ARTICLE]

The Vanderbilt Case.

The compromise in the Vanderbilt will case was brought about finally by threatened evidence more derogatory than anything that has yet transpired as to the character of the deceased Commodore. It has cost William H,, the eldest son and heir, $1,000,000 be sides the legal expenses, which amount to a considerable sum. The suit was a good investment for Cornelius and Mrs. Le Bair who thus received just double the amount they would otherwise have received. Nevertheless it has been a disreputable sort of exhibition throughout. None of the parties to the suit have come out of it with any particular credit. It is generally understood that William IT. Vanderbilt had agreed to give Cornelius $1,000,000 if he would not contest the will; if so, he should have lived up to that agreement without being forced to keep faith by the exposure of domestic troubles. At the same time, the Commodore’s successor, in yielding finally to further scandal, has shown himself more sensitive to his father’s reputation than the Commodore himself would have been under similar circumstances. Erom what we know of the deceased Vanderbilt’s character, we should say that no amount of blackmail, and even no fear of exposures founded on truth, would ever have succeeded in making him yield $1 of his hoard. He was apparently indifferent to criticism and the opinion of his fellows. The suit was terminated by a withdrawal of all charges of uvdne influence by the widow of the late Commodore, but it has occupied so mu ch public attention within the last few months that everybody will have an opinion of his own as to ■ that matter. A good many people will be firm in the belief that a man of Commodore Vanderbilt’s great self-reliance and nerve was not to be swayed by a woman or any of the influences with which she could surround him. The reading and observation of others will lead them to think that Vanderbilt, though a man of iron will, immense wealth, and great courage in business affairs, was just the sort of person to yield to womanly direction in the later years of his life, and to lend a willing ear to Spiritualism or other influences of a mystic or superstitious character. The conclusion of all flie evidence which the contestants to produce would not probably have worked any important change in the various judgments of the public, no matter what the verdict in the Surrogate’s Court might have been. Chicago Tribune.