John Moody

“ But competition between railroads is well-nigh impossible. Only in case different companies operated their cars upon the same roadbed—something which, in the earliest days, they actually did on certain lines—could they compete, and any such system as a general practice is clearly impracticable. One railroad which paralleled another in all its details might compete with it, but there are almost no routes that can furnish business enough for two such lines, and the carrying out of such an idea involves a waste of capital on an enormous scale. ”

“ Practical railroad men everywhere ridiculed the idea of a railroad running across the far northern country, climbing mountain ranges, traversing hundreds of streams and extending for great stretches through absolutely wild and uninhabited regions. Especially did they deem it absurd to attempt such an undertaking without government aid, subsidies, or grants of land, pointing to the experience of such roads as the Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Santa Fe. ”

“ Perhaps more than any other one person, Cassatt foresaw the approach of the day when New York City as a commercial center would outstrip both in density of population and in amount of wealth all the other cities of the world. He and his predecessors had for many years witnessed the great industrial development of the Pittsburgh district, where property values had grown by leaps and bounds and where the steadily advancing development of industry and material resources had been so unmistakably reflected in the increasing earning power and value of the Pennsylvania Railroad properties. ”

“ But the great miracle of the nineteenth century—the building of a new nation, reaching more than three thousand miles from sea to sea, giving sustenance to more than one hundred million free people, and diffusing among them the necessities and comforts of civilization to a greater extent than the world had ever known before is explained by the development of harvesting machinery and of the railroad. ”

“ It is only when one reads such a book as Francis Parkman's "Oregon Trail" that one fully realizes the vast transformation which has taken place within little more than half a century in the great Northwestern territory beyond the Mississippi and the Missouri. In that fascinating history we read of the romantic and thrilling experiences of Parkman and his companions in their summer journey across the plains of Nebraska and through the mountain ranges of Wyoming, Montana, and Oregon. ”

“ In the minds of most people a railroad was a business, precisely like any other business, and the modern notion that it was "affected with a public interest" and that the public was therefore necessarily a partner in the railroad business had made practically no headway. "Can't I do what I want with my own?" Commodore Vanderbilt had exclaimed, asserting his exclusive right to control the operations of the New York Central system ”

“ For instance, although the law forbade any railroad system from acquiring a complete control of a competing line by purchasing a majority of its capital stock or by leasing it, nothing was said about one railroad having a minority investment interest in another. A minority investment, even though it be as low as ten or twenty per cent, usually constitutes a dominating influence if held by a single interest, for in most cases the majority of the shares will be owned in small blocks by thousands of investors who never combine for a definite, practical purpose. ”

“ Huntington was a hard man to deal with. Himself one of the practical railroad magnates of his time, he also had the gift of vision and undoubtedly foresaw that the ultimate result must be a consolidation of the properties; but he fully expected that his company would absorb the Union Pacific. Had it not been that during the panic period the Southern Pacific had heavy loads of its own to carry and that its credit was none too high, Huntington might then have attempted to gain control of the Union Pacific. ”

“ These three great railroad systems, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, constituting nearly twenty thousand miles of railroad, have been known ever since as Hill lines.
Since the dramatic days of the Harriman-Hill contest the history of the Northern Pacific system has been simply a striking reflection of the growth in population and wealth of the great Northwest. The States through which it operates have grown with astounding rapidity during the past two decades; small cities have spread into great centers of manufacture and trade ”

“ During the remarkable period of commercial and industrial development in this country from 1870 onward, when thousands of miles of new lines were built every year, when the growth of population was beginning to make the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois centers of wealth and production, and when the wonderful Northwestern country embracing the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, was so rapidly opened up and brought nearer to the Eastern markets, the Vanderbilt railroad interests were not idle. ”

“ After all, it took a towboat three or four days to go from Albany to Buffalo, and the time was not far distant, they argued, when a railroad would make the same trip in less than a day. Indeed, our forefathers made one curious mistake: they predicted a speed for the railroad a hundred miles an hour—which it has never attained consistently with safety.
If the American of today could transport himself to one of the first railroad lines built in the United States it is not unlikely that he would side with the canal enthusiast in his argument. ”

“ Undoubtedly the fortunate location of the Pennsylvania lines in the half dozen States which represent the financial and industrial heart of the continent has had much to do with its vast growth and the expansion of its business; but its high reputation can be explained only by the long record of its superior methods and management. One of the primary objects of Pennsylvania Railroad policy has been to keep pace with the growth of the country. ”

“ In the meanwhile the Northern Pacific has forged ahead in its earnings and profits, and the stock of the road has come to be known as one of the highest class of investment issues. Although new competition appeared, in both the local and the through business of the company—notably by the extension of the St. Paul system largely through Northern Pacific territory to the Puget Sound region—the superior modern business management of James J. Hill, backed by the strong resources of the Morgan banking interests, made the Northern Pacific one of the standard railroad systems of America. ”

“ The story of the Baltimore and Ohio for the past decade has been mainly a record of a growing, well-managed, and efficient business. It is closely identified with the personality of its notable and efficient president, Daniel Willard, a conspicuous example of the modern type of railroad manager. In the earlier days of railroading, and especially in the long period which came to an end with the death of Harriman, the typical railroad president was usually a man of great wealth who had secured his position by owning a large financial interest in the property. ”