Marion Fernley
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Although the most important railroader of his time, he would be almost wholly forgotten today were it not for four simple words he so uncharacteristically and incautiously uttered on October 8, 1882: “The public be damned.”
In 1883, reporter John Dickinson Sherman questioned him about why he ran the limited express train: "Do your limited express trains pay or do you run them for the accommodation of the public?" Vanderbilt responded with: "Accommodation of the public? The public be damned! We run them because we have to. They do not pay.
a phrase meaning 'you can publish if you like, I don't care'. It is thought to have been used by the Duke of Wellington when he received threats that private details about him were going to be published. It is now used more often when someone decides to publish something offensive or unpopular even though they know they will face public criticism.
"public be damned." On Sunday afternoon, 8 October 1882, as a New York Central Railroad train bearing W. H. Vanderbilt, president of the railroad, approached Chicago, two newspaper reporters boarded the train and interviewed Vanderbilt on various aspects of the railroad industry.
The public be damned. Words attributed to William H. Vanderbilt, a railroad executive of the late nineteenth century. They were supposedly spoken to a newspaper reporter. The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Nov 6, 2022 · The public be damned! Attributed remark to a reporter during a visit to Chicago, promptly denied by Vanderbilt. Descriptions of the context and circumstances vary widely, although most accounts agree that he was asked whether he ran an unprofitable train for the public's benefit.
May 27, 2013 · In a column titled “The Public Be Damned,” accompanied by a photo of a smiling, bald-headed economist, Friedman argued that the attitude expressed in that title, far from being businessmen’s attitude toward the public, is actually the attitude of the U.S. Post Office.
