William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–85), president of the New York Central and numerous other railroads, was a quiet, honest, modest, and, above all else, moderate man. 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.”
[...] Dresser had barged into Vanderbilt’s car on its arrival in Chicago and demanded his immediate attention. Vanderbilt said that he was in the middle of eating but, if Dresser would wait until he had finished, he would give him a minute.

“But it is late,” Dresser said, “and I will not reach the office in time. The public—”

“The public be damned,” Vanderbilt burst out. “You get out of here!”

According to Stone that was all there was to it. Dresser tried to sell the story to the Chicago Daily News, where Stone was then editor, but the night editor was not interested in words provoked from a man whose patience and privacy has been assaulted. Dresser, still according to Stone, then made his way to the Tribune and turned in a different story. The crucial part of the interview printed in the Tribune and reprinted everywhere went like this:

“Does your limited express [between New York and Chicago] pay?” Dresser asked.

“No, not a bit of it. We only run it because we are forced to do so by the action of the Pennsylvania Road. It doesn’t pay expenses. We would abandon it if it was not for our competitor keeping its train on.”

“But don’t you run it for the public benefit?”

“The public be damned. What does the public care for the railroads except to get as much out of them for as small a consideration as possible. I don’t take any stock in this silly nonsense about working for anybody’s good, but our own because we are not. When we make a move we do it because it is our interest to do so, not because we expect to do somebody else some good. Of course we like to do everything possible for the benefit of humanity in general, but when we do we first see that we are benefiting ourselves. Railroads are not run on sentiment, but on business principles and to pay, and I don’t mean to be egotistic when I say that the roads which I have had anything to do with have generally paid pretty well.”

Still a third version comes from Vanderbilt’s favorite nephew, Samuel Barton, who was traveling aboard the train with his uncle that day. He reported quite a different context a few years later to William A. Croffut, who published a biography of Vanderbilt in 1886.

“Why are you going to stop this fast mail-train?” Dresser asked in this version.

“Because it doesn’t pay. I can’t run a train as far as this permanently at a loss.”

“But the public find it very convenient and useful. You ought to accommodate them.”

“The public? How do you know they find it useful? How do you know, or how can I know, that they want it? If they want it, why don’t they patronize it and make it pay? That’s the only test I have of whether a thing is wanted—does it pay? If it doesn’t pay, I suppose it isn’t wanted.”

“Mr. Vanderbilt, are you working for the public or for your stockholders?”

“The public be damned! I am working for my stockholders! If the public want the train, why don’t they support it?”