Owen D Young, who served as president and chairman of GE from 1922-1939, told a story on himself (quoted in the Ida Tarbell biography) about his days as a young lawyer working for Stone & Webster. His assignment was to obtain streetcar franchises for the company in various cities, and he was particularly proud of the contract he negotiated with El Paso…it explicitly gave S&W the right to run trolley tracks “in every street, present and future of the city.”
Shortly after Young left El Paso, though, another guy–a real operator named Theodore Barnsdall–visited the city, and after paying $25000 to the owner of a tiny, mule-powered street railway (which Young had viewed as having no value other than the $50 that the mule was worth) got introduced to the city council. He also obtained a contract from the city–identical to Young’s except for the words “in the middle of every street, present and future.”