As California entered the 20th century, the Southern Pacific's Big Four were on their death beds. The Big Four had built and run the state of California, turning the state into a fiefdom. The Southern Pacific empire was about to get reorganized by some even bigger players.
When Edward Harriman bought Southern Pacific from the widow of Collis P. Huntington in 1902, he handed one of the most important jewels of the SP, Wells Fargo bank, over to the Hellman family. In public statements around the sale of SP, there was never any discussion of who the Hellman family was or why the bank was given to them. Only do we see why at Elberon.
Mr. Harriman was financed by Kuhn and Loeb in the purchase of both the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroad companies. Prince Poniatowski wasn't visiting Elberon for mere cultural reasons! He just happened to be married into Charles Crocker's family of the Southern Pacific big four. He was visiting the businessmen who had just helped take control of the economic resources of California.
The Reorganization of California was underway. By 1930, The Southern Pacific was neatly tucked away as one of the accounts at National City Company. Other Accounts included Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Who is National City Bank? The Stillman family happend to be the New York banker for John D. Rockefeller during the rise of the Standard Oil monopoly. In 1911, the U.S. settled the 6 year old legal fight over the breakup of the Standard empire. John handed control of National City Bank to his brother, who happened to be a very close friend of J.P. Morgan.
Mr. Morgan happened to be another one of those funnels for English investors. He purchased control of Thomas Edison's company and renamed it General Electric. The GE employee retirement fund called Electric Bond and Share Group was started by Morgan to begin his campaign of controlling the U.S. electric utility industry. Electric Bond and Share became one of the most important accounts at National City Company. Of course, National City is known today as Citicorp.
After the 1929 stock collapse, President Roosevelt was able to pass the Steagel act that broke up the National stranglehold of proxied control of large companies across the country and into South and Central America. Some 300 Vice Presidents in charge of corporate accounts at National went scurrying to other firms.
In what was one of the most telling events for people wanting to watch where the money went for Californians, Pacific Gas & Electric's president moved their lead account from National to Lazard Freres. Lazard Freres was a Rothschild investment firm.
The English Midlands Bank (The branch of the Bank of England formerly known as the Far East Trading Company, that oversaw Asia during its colonial days) purchased control of Crocker Bank during the early 1980's. On February 7th, 1986 Wells Fargo announced its plan to purchase Crocker from Midlands. In 1960, the other major investment front of the Southern Pacific Crowd called Mercantile Trust also merged into Wells Fargo. Today, Wells Fargo is the 7th largest bank in the U.S.
Probably the most historically important bank in California is the Bank of California. This bank was directly related to the Comstock Lode and made millions for the Sharon, Ralston and Mills families of California. The bank failed in 1875, but was later refinanced.
In 1980, the bank was controlled by the Rothschild family. The bank was later merged with Union Bank to become California Union Bank in 1994. Investigations have not been completed to verify whether or not the Rothschilds control California Union Bank.
In 1999 Suisse Union Bank merged with Warburg interests to become USB Warburg, the largest bank in Switzerland. Should I be looking for connections here?