New York Transportation Company (Signed by William Gibbs McAdoo)

Product Details

Beautifully engraved antique stock certificate from the New York Transportation Company dating back to the early 1900's. This document, which is signed by the company President (William Gibbs McAdoo) and Treasurer,  was printed by the American Bank Note Company and measures approximately 11 1/4" (w) by 7" (h).

This certificate's vignette features a pair of allegorical female figures flanking a dynamo.  On the left there is an open air trolley car, and on the right there is a period automobile on a city street. 

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You will receive the exact certificate pictured.

Historical Context

Operating companies of the Fifth Ave bus system were Fifth Avenue Transportation Company Limited (1885-1895,) which was foreclosed, then Fifth Avenue Coach Company (1897-1954.)

The holding companies, the real power, were quite a tangle, and were incorporated in different states. The New York Electrical Vehicle Transportation Company (incorporated in New Jersey) took control in 1899, and changed its name to the New York Transportation Company in 1902. The New York Transportation Company was itself controlled as of 1922 by the Fifth Avenue Bus Securities Corporation - a Delaware entity. That was in turn controlled by The Omnibus Corporation, another Delaware company, which was named Chicago Motor Coach Corporation up to 1924. On 1954, the Omnibus Corporation was renamed the Hertz Corporation - yes, the automobile rental company. It came to light many years later that the Omnibus Corporation was controlled by General Motors interests.

William Gibbs McAdoo

The son of a southern jurist, William Gibbs McAdoo was born near Marietta, Georgia, and educated at the University of Tennessee. After practicing law in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for several years, he opened a law office in New York City in 1892. Ten years later he organized and directed the company that completed construction of the railroad tubes under the Hudson River. After service as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1912, McAdoo became President Woodrow Wilson's secretary of the Treasury. In addition to his duties as secretary, he served as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Farm Loan Board, the War Finance Corporation, and the United States section of the International High Commission. He also floated four Liberty Loans and was responsible for extending credit to the Allied Powers in World War I. In January 1918, with the railroads on the verge of collapse, he became director general of railways and instituted operational reforms. A widower, he married the President's daughter, Eleanor Randolph Wilson. (They were divorced 20 years later.)

McAdoo's superior abilities won him a strong following within the administration. If President Wilson had withdrawn himself categorically from contention for a third nomination in 1920, McAdoo would undoubtedly have been selected, although he could not, as the President's son-in-law, make an open bid. McAdoo would probably have won the nomination in 1924, also, but he was linked indirectly to the Teapot Dome scandal (though not involved in the scandal itself) and had committed certain professional improprieties. As it was, he and Al Smith deadlocked the Democratic nominating convention for dozens of ballots, and only after both men reluctantly withdrew was John W. Davis named on the 103rd ballot.

A jaunty man of great personal charm, McAdoo also had a strong strain of opportunism. As Walter Lippmann wrote in 1920, he was not "fundamentally moved by the simple moralities" and his "honest" liberalism catered largely to popular feeling.

Embittered by his failure to win the nomination, McAdoo practiced law in California until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1932. He was a staunch supporter, but not truly a leader, of the New Deal. He was defeated for re-nomination in 1938 and died three years later.

McAdoo is known for a famous quote that still rings true today:

”It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”