Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1901-11-15
BIG RAILWAY KINGS UNITE !
Hill and Hartman Interests Sign
Momentous Truce.
VAST CORPORATION FORMS.
Northern Securities Company Is Licensed
with Capital or 100000, Costly
Conflicts VIII End---IIiIl in Control OF
Group OF Roads.

New York, Nov. 15.-There has been
Incorporated at Trenton, N. j., COM
pany with $400,OO0,0OO capital, whose
existence makes the most huge COM
bination of railroad interests known
in the history of the world. 1t is the
Northern Securities Company, en-
dowed by it's articles of incorporation
in general terms with the power to
acquire, control and dispose Of the
capital stock Of other corporations,
but organized on purpose to take over
the stocks of the Great Northern and
Northern Pacific railroads.
Railroad Kings at Peace
The meaning of the appearance of
this company is that Hill and Harri-
man, through Morgan, have come to
such terms that they will act in the
future as one. It means the final set
Element of that great strife of the rail-
road monarchs which brought about
in it's most acute moments the Black
Friday of the stock exchange, when
Northern Pacific quotations SCARED
toward the 1000 mark. 1t means that
Union Pacific and Southern Pacific,
Burlington, Great Northern and North
ern Pacific, with a total of $4,000 miles
of track, are in the future to be held
in such close and intimate ownership
that conflicts between them will be
out of the question. In short, it is
the triumph of the idea of community
of ownership, not merely on the
smaller scale by which the two great
est railroad groups Of the country
were built up, but between these two
groups themselves.
Preferred Stock Retired.
The birth of the Northern Securities
Company was not the only event of
the day which was full Of meaning as
sign of this great harmony OF the
companies. There was a meeting of
the directors of the Northern Pacific
Railroad company, at which the pre-
ferred stock of the road was retired,
to be replaced by bonds convertible
into common stock. In this action
both Hartman and Hill interests
agreed, no 10 ger having between them
the hostility which last May, after the
panic in Wall street, babe fair to make
the fight upon this point bitter one.
James J. Hill has come out of the long
struggle in control of his northern
group of railroads. He has, through
the Burlington properties, which were,
so to speak, annexed by the greater
power to the Northwest, brought his
system down to Chicago with all it's
outlets to the East. He has built up
his group of roads into one which
might conceivably rival that other
great group. the Hartman roads,
which combine the Union Pacific and
Southern Pacific, and, with the North
western and the Vanderbilt lines fur
Their east, make a transcontinental
system. ...s
Two Systems Overlap
But he does not hold his transpOrta-
rion empire as one hostile to the sys-
tenn to the south of. him. Great
amounts OF the stock Of his system will
be held by the Hartman syndicate.
Through its holdings in the new
Northern Securities Company, for
which the Union Pacific's interests in
the Northern Pacific road will be ex-
changed, it gains also an interest in
the control of the Burlington line.
In short, all these roads are now to
be so closely bound together that rate
cutting, indirect and stealthy, or open
and fierce methods of war, will be i'm
possible, and the stockholders, and
| probably the public also, will be i'm
measurable gamers. AS for J. Pier
pont Morgan, he remains as ever the
great controlling figure, the man who
organizes, combines, harmonizes, who
stands as the friend of both factions
and makes each OF them friendly to
the other. s-