Robert Ralph Young was a United States financier and industrialist.
Background
Young was born on February 14, 1897 in Canadian, Texas, the son of David John Young, a banker, and Mary Arabella Moody. His mother died when he was ten, and Robert was raised by his father, a strict man who did not particularly care for his rather precocious son.
Education
Young was sent to Culver Military Academy in Indiana, from which he graduated at the head of his class in 1914. Then he entered the University of Virginia, where he became more interested in social life than studies; he dropped out before the end of his second year.
Career
Rather than work for his father, Young took a job as a common laborer at the E. I. DuPont gunpowder plant at Carney's Point, New Jersey. He worked his way up to the treasurer's office, and there learned about finance. His grandfather had just died and left Robert an inheritance of $5, 000. He used this money to speculate in securities, and lost it all. But in the process Young became interested in Wall Street, and thus found one of his major occupations, that of a stock speculator and manipulator. In 1922 Young took a job at General Motors, where his financial acumen enabled him to rise to the post of assistant treasurer by 1928. He became a protégé of John J. Raskob, the head of the company, and left General Motors soon after to manage Raskob's finances when Raskob took a leave of absence. But the two men argued in early 1929 when Young predicted a stock market crash and Raskob disagreed. Young went off on his own, sold stocks short, and made a fortune in the 1929 market collapse. In 1931 Young purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and in alliance with Allan P. Kirby (a retail merchant) made large purchases of Alleghany Corporation common stock. The Guaranty Trust Company also wanted control of Alleghany, a holding company that owned large blocks of stock in the Chesapeake and Ohio, the New York, Chicago and St. Louis, and other lines. A prolonged struggle began, with Young assuming the posture of the defender of the small stockholders. In the process he learned about railroad operations and considered creating a true transcontinental line, an ambition that had eluded the giants of the golden age of railroads in the late nineteenth century. Young assumed the chairmanship of both Alleghany and the C and O. After World War II he attempted to obtain a central position at the Pullman Company, and when this failed, he turned to the New York Central. Young purchased New York Central shares through Alleghany and the C and O, and in 1947, in control of 400, 000 shares, he demanded seats on the board. The Central responded with a publicity campaign, in which Young was characterized as an irresponsible plunger who meant to milk the line dry. In addition, the board of directors filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission, noting that Young's position at the C and O would compromise any office he might hold at the Central, since there would then be de facto interlocking directorates. Young responded by writing a series of advertisements, which appeared throughout the country from 1947 on. In them he attacked mismanagement not only at the Central but throughout the nation, and promised to end it once he obtained power. He offered the Cincinnati terminal of the C and O as a connecting point for any western road willing to use it and the C and O rolling stock. The Central had terminals in Chicago and St. Louis, and he proposed to do the same with them if and when he assumed command. Young and the management of the New York Central entered into a series of proxy wars in the late 1940's. They ended in a Young victory in 1954. He then stepped down as chairman of the C and O to take the same post at the Central. Young selected Alfred Perlman of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad as the new president of the Central, with a mandate to improve passenger service and seek mergers so as to create a national rail corporation. But the western lines were not interested in uniting with the Central, then close to bankruptcy, although the Pennsylvania wanted talks, in the hope of decreasing competition. Meanwhile, Young suffered fits of depression. His daughter had died in a plane crash in 1940, and he never fully recovered from the blow. Continued economic troubles at the Central, compounded by a recession and the inability to make good his promises, led to further gloom. The nature of the industry and the unwillingness of the federal government to sanction a unitary rail system compounded all of this, and in one of his dark moods Young committed suicide in Palm Beach, Florida.
Achievements
Religion
Young was a long-time member of the Presbyterian Church in Canadian.
Connections
On April 27, 1916, Young married Anita Ten Eyck O'Keeffe, sister of Georgia O'Keeffe. They had one daughter, Eleanor "Cookie" Young, who became one of the much-publicized "Glamour Debutantes" of the Great Depression-era.