Mantis James Van Sweringen was an American railroad operator.
Background
Van Sweringen was born on July 8, 1881, in Wooster, Ohio. He was the youngest of the three sons and fifth of the six children born to James Tower and Jennie (Curtis) Van Sweringen. He was a descendant of Gerrit Van Sweringen, who settled in New Amsterdam about 1657 and moved to Maryland soon afterward. After the mother's death, about 1885, the family moved to Geneva, and after the father's, about 1893, to Cleveland.
Career
Here Mantis, whose schooling ended with the eighth grade, found a place as an office boy with a company which had shortly before employed his brother, Oris Paxton, two years older than himself, in the same capacity. The two worked their way up to clerkships; then, when Oris was twenty-one and Mantis nineteen, they left the office to embark in a real-estate business of their own. From that time until death intervened, the two brothers were inseparable; in work and in thought they appeared to be identical.
Within a short time, they became interested in a tract of 1, 400 acres, an old Shaker property, just outside of Cleveland, rough and eroded, but having possibilities as a residential suburb. They borrowed money from banks to buy options and improve it, developed it on a grand scale, increased their holdings to 4, 000 acres, christened it Shaker Heights, and made it immensely profitable. In 1900 the land was appraised at $240, 000; in 1923 at $29, 282, 000. They needed a transit-line extension to it, which the city street-railway company refused to build until the Van Sweringens persuaded it to do so by offering to pay five years' interest on the cost. With the line built, they began to sell the property; but in the course of a few years they needed a transit line to another part of it, and this the street-car company refused to build upon any terms.
The brothers, who had by this time acquired some capital, decided that they must build the line themselves. In negotiating for a right of way, they found desirable a strip of land belonging to the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, popularly known as the Nickel Plate, a line from Buffalo to Chicago then controlled by the New York Central. The Van Sweringens now, largely by accident, entered into the railroad business. The Interstate Commerce Commission had ordered the New York Central to divest itself of the Nickel Plate, and the Van Sweringens, with the help of a few others, bought it in 1916 for $8, 500, 000. They borrowed $2, 000, 000 from Cleveland banks to make the first payment and gave notes for the rest. J. J. Bernet, one of the ablest operating men in the country, was made a president. The brothers had meanwhile conceived an idea for a much-needed, centrally located union railroad station in Cleveland, and after nearly four years of argument, obtained the consent of the city and the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Meanwhile, they had been buying land for the project, about thirty acres, and now they began razing buildings. At this time, however, the United States entered the First World War and the Nickel Plate, along with all other roads, was taken over by the government. When it was returned after the war, the brothers greatly improved it. In 1922, they added to it the Toledo, St. Louis & Western ("Clover Leaf") and the Lake Erie & Western, the latter bought from the New York Central for $3, 000, 000. They now had 1, 700 miles of track, linking Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, and Indianapolis, Peoria, and St. Louis. The system began to be profitable and the stock of the companies rose enormously in value. In December 1922, they took over the Chesapeake & Ohio and its subsidiary, the Hocking Valley, thus giving them an outlet to the Atlantic seaboard. For the first time, they went into Wall Street to borrow, and J. P. Morgan & Company thereafter lent them large sums. In 1923 they bought control of the Erie and Pere Marquette systems, and in 1924 completed their great Cleveland Terminal. Next, they engulfed the vast Missouri Pacific system, and by 1932 were operating 21, 000 miles of rail. Holding companies for the roads were organized, income on the stock of which was dependent on the common-stock earnings of the railroad companies.
The brothers divided the work: Mantis was chairman of the board of directors of the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Nickel Plate, Pere Marquette, Erie, and Hocking Valley, while Oris headed the Missouri Pacific and its subsidiaries. In 1935, their great financial pyramid showed signs of weakening. They defaulted in payment of a loan of $48, 000, 000, and the Morgans ordered their properties sold. But the Van Sweringens formed another holding company, the MidAmerica Corporation, and bought them in for $3, 121, 000. Mantis lived only a few months thereafter, his death occasioned by hypertensive myocarditis; Oris died two years later; and their great rail "empire" then disintegrated.
Achievements
Personality
Van Sweringen and his brother Oris lived quietly at a country home with their two maiden sisters, for Herbert, the eldest, was the only one of the group of brothers and sisters who married. Their only recreation was horseback riding.
Connections
Like the Wright Brothers, Mantis and his brother were life-long bachelors.