"Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down." - Collis P. Huntingdon, railroad tycoon

The Gilded Age credo of one of America's most formidable railroad barons, Collis P. Huntingdon, echoes through the annals of industrial history not as a mere quip, but as a stark declaration of the era’s cutthroat ethos. "Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down," he is famously quoted, a statement that perfectly encapsulates the ruthless ambition and moral flexibility that built empires and shattered competitors.

Huntingdon, a principal in the Central Pacific Railroad and later the Southern Pacific, was a key figure in forging the First Transcontinental Railroad. While celebrated as a national achievement, its construction was a saga of immense profit, political corruption, and brutal labor practices. Huntingdon’s philosophy was his business model. Vast federal land grants, intended for public benefit, were treated as personal fiefdoms. State and municipal coffers were pried open through lavish bribes to legislators, securing favorable laws and even more lucrative subsidies. Competitors were not merely outmaneuvered; they were often crushed through predatory pricing, exclusive deals he strong-armed from suppliers, and the strategic manipulation of the very tracks his companies laid.

This worldview extended beyond business rivals to the very landscape and people in its path. Indigenous tribes were violently displaced from lands needed for the rail lines, their claims treated as inconsequential obstacles. The backbreaking labor was performed largely by underpaid immigrant workers, most famously thousands of Chinese laborers, whose safety was a secondary concern to speed and cost. For Huntingdon, anything that could be taken—land, public funds, even the dignity and security of workers—was, by his definition, available for the taking if one had the strength and cunning to seize it.

The legacy of this philosophy is a complex one. It was undeniably a driving force behind the rapid industrial expansion that connected a continent and supercharged the American economy. However, it also entrenched a culture of corporate monopoly and political graft, setting a precedent where the power of capital often overshadowed the public good. It was a testament to a time when the rules were written by those with the power to pry up the very foundations of fairness and competition. In today’s terms, Huntingdon’s statement reads as a chilling justification for a winner-take-all capitalism, a reminder that the line between ambitious enterprise and outright exploitation is often drawn by those holding the crowbar.