which positions they still hold. The other members of the board of directors of the merged roads are Guiliermo de Landa y Escandon, governor of the Federal District of Mexico, Samuel Morse Felton, former president of the Mexican Central, who was Harriman's special emissary in Mexico to work on Diaz to secure his consent to the deal, E. N. Brown, former vice-president and general manager of the Mexican National lines, and Gabriel Mancera. Each of these four men is said to have made a personal fortune for himself out of the transaction.
The National Railways of Mexico, as they are officially known, have, in addition to a general board of directors, a New York board of directors. Note the Harriman timber to be found among these names: William H. Nichols, Ernest Thallmann, James N. Wallace, James Speyer, Bradley W. Palmer, H. Clay Pierce, Clay Arthur Pierce, Henry S. Priest, Eban Richards and H. C. P. Channan.
Whether the Mexican railroad steal was conceived in the brain of Limantour or of Harriman is not known, but Limantour seems to have attempted to bring about the merger originally without the aid of Harriman. Some four years ago Limantour and Don Pablo Martinez del Rio, owner of the Mexican Herald and manager of the Banco Nacional, went into the market and bought heavily of Mexican Central and Mexican National stock, after which they broached the merger scheme to Diaz. Diaz turned the proposition down pointblank and Limantour and del Rio both lost heavily, del Rio's losses so bearing down upon him that he died soon afterwards.
It was at this point that Limantour is supposed to have turned to Harriman, who immediately fell in with
