THE LATE MR HARRIMAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2607, 15 September 1909, Page 5

THE LATE MR HARRIMAN.

ARRANGEMENTS WITH MR PIEIIPONT MORGAN. IJniticij Press Association— Copyiiiqht. NEW YORK, (Sept. 13. The late Mr Harriman, knowing that he was dying, summoned Mr Pierpont Morgan, who had been his chief opponent. They conferred for two hours on Thursday, and Mr Morgan arranged to uphold the market for the protection of the Harriman interests. During the funeral all trains over 64,000 miles of railway simultaneously halted for 10 minutes.

The late Mr. E J. Harriman, American railroad king, was born at Hampstead, Long Island, in 1848. His father, the Rev. Orlando’' Harriman, was rector of the' little parish of St. George’s at Hampstead. Young Harriman was, by all aeounts, very much the father of the man ;he was a “scrapper,” and a day begun without a shindy was not properly begun. As associate of liis school days described him as “the worst little devil in his class, and always at the top of it.” For a time the boy and his brothers attended Trinity School, in New York. After leaving school, Harriman entered an office in Wall Street, New York. Four years later—he was then 18—he had a partnership* At 22 he entered business on his own account, and bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. That seat he held throughout his career, a striking comment on the man’s personality, when it is remembered that few men have held their seats in that somewhat uncertain chamber longer than he did. The firm of E. J. Harriman and Co. got on. Later it became known as Harriman and Co. In 1883 the fight with the Illinois Central Railroad came on. Harriman held a considerable block of shares in that concern, and he became a director. His influence and rich connections turned the scale, and the fight was theirs. In 1887 he became vice-president of the road. Ver- soon Harriman took the reins of government into his own hands, and set about re-constructing the Illinois Central. This road was suffering from a plethora, of traffic, with which, in its then inefficient condition, it was unable to cope. Here, Harriman’s previous experience in railroading enabled him to grip the situation. Some years before he had got control of a little line that ran southword, 34 miles, from Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario. It was a fragile affair, with a traffic as light as its roadbed and equipment. Harriman made it a good road, handled the traffic successfully, and made it pay, finally selling it to the Pennsylvania Company. His work on that tiny railroad struck the keynote of his whole policy, efficiency. The prevailing idea in those days, and even now in some places, was to run a railway as cheaply as possible, and secure big dividends. Harriman’s notion was that there were bigger dividends in making adequate provision for traffic. No expense was spared bv him in attaining that ideal, with the result that the Illinois Central became a conspicuous example of an efficient high-grade modem railroad. The great financial orash of 1893 made havoc of many of the principal American railroads, among them being the Union Pacific, aggregating about 7500 miles of railway. This line was struggling along under a huge debt to the United States Government of something like 54,000,000 dollars, reckoning simple and compound interest. _ Against this were securities amounting to 13,000,000 dollar's. It was not an inviting wreck. Harriman was made Chairman of the Executive Committee set up by a wealthy corporation, which had paid over something like 60,000j)00 to the Government for the control of the road/, and the work o*f re-construc-tion began. This was in 1898. With the sagacity of prescience, Harriman made arrangements for handling the coming enormous traffic arising from the recovery of the prosperity of the West from the debacle of 1893. _ He went - over the entire track, mile by mile, telegraphing huge orders _ for equipment as he went. His anticipations were realised, the crops their promise, and the Union Pacific shot up with a bound. Harriman’s next . step was the rebuilding of the mountan section of the road, 20,000,000 dollars were eaten up in this daring enterprise. The line was levelled to a maximum grade of 41 feet to the mile, the Union Pacific occupied the most advantageous route through its territory, and praotically barred competition. The next development in Harriman’s gigantic scheme of operations was the purchase of the control of an entire system—-the Southern Pacific, with which was incorporated the old Central Pacific—a deal, representing, as a cash investment, something like 70,000,000 dollars. This, however, was merely a prelude to the expenditure of huge sums in improvements of the newly-acquired systems in conformity with the policy adopted with the Union Pacific. In a period of six years, Harriman’s two roads spent a total of over 200,000,000 dollars—an average of about 14,000 dollars per mile 1 ! The appropriations for 1907 totalled 35,000,000 dollars. The results of this policy are interesting. In 1906 the gross income of the system totalled 170,000,000 dollars, a larger income than was possessed by any railroad system in toe world, the Pennslyvania Railroad excepted. Even at lately as July last we hear of a new Napoleonic scheme of railway construction associated with the name of Mr. Harriman —a great trunk railway through Mexico, connecting the United States system with the Panama Canal, terminating either at the western end on the Pacific Ocean, or at the eastern end on the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Harriman himself paid a visit to Mexico, and was reported as saying that the new railway would be completed when the Canal is ready to be opened for traffic.