Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-05-23

Il
| law of its power TO do HARM / am will
| ing to see money shorn of such power.
1 have no wish TO have that kind OF
power. And, in my opinion. the events
Of yesterday will do much TO bring
| about legislation that Will make them
impossible in the future.
Il am sorry for the victims in Wall
street; but. after all, it must not be
| forgotten that man who sells what
he does not possess acts on his own re-
sponsibility and voluntarily places him.
self in peril. AS for myself. have not
bought or sold one share of Northern
Pacific stock since October. i have
simply stood with my friends in de-
Tense of that property and refused to
sell the control OF the Northern Pacific
to its rival. the Union Pacific. no mat
ter how high the price OF the stock
rose. No price tempted us. 1t was not
n matter of price; il was matter of or
binary principle.
"In Mr.. MorGan's absence we would
not allow the railroad he reorganized
TO be seized by its competitor. l and
my friends had $3O.OO0.OOO of North
ern Pacific stock yesterday. and not
one man parted with share. The con-
troll of the Northern Pacific road is
safely in the hands of Mr.. Morgan.
That is the clear result of the struggle.
The attempt the Union Pacific peo-
pie to secU possession of their great
rival has completely failed.
Now, this is briefly n description Of
the situation: The Northern Pacific
road was reorganized by ]. Pierpont
Morgan and brought up TO be n good
dividend paying. substantial property
The reorganization committee got
large block OF stock. about $30.000.00O.
and my friends took this stock from
them. Since then some OF us have
sold and some have kept what they had
and some have added 10 their holdings.
We did not have control of the road,
but we had large part of the stock.
"Then came the Burlington deal The
Burlington road was a peculiar proper
~. Its ownership had descended, in
New England mainly. from father to
son. 1t had 5000 shareholders, and
the average stock owned by one per-
son amounted to about 40 shares. No
body could acquire possession of that
road through its directors in an open,
straightforward manner. 1t became
evident that the ownership of the Bur-
lington system was necessary to the
Northern Pacific and Great Northern
roads. This was a perfectly natural
development. q growth that did not in
validate the construction of any more
railways and simply involved a change
In the ownership OF the Burlington.
"All this talk about a transcontinen-
tai railroad is nonsense. 1t is an abso-
lutte impossibillty. There are a hum
dred reasons against 1t. The products
of the northwest are nearly all sold at
Chicago. Duluth and st. Paul. AT these
points the freight changes owners, and
the new owners ship over any line they
please. The business that would nat
urally so through from coast to coast
would amount to less than per cent
of the whole traffic. Besides, the con-
ditions under which railroad traffic is
carried on east and west of Chicago,
the necessarily different freight rates,
depending on the differences In the
density of traffic, make the idea of a
transcontinental railroad an absurdity.
No one seriously thinks OF such q thing.
1.-The necessity for an extension of
the Northern Pacific and Great North
ern roads by the joint purchase of the
Burlington was obvious. The growth
or our trade with Asia and the immense
prospects or still greater growth, the
demand for transportation for cotton
and corn, -four and meats and provi-
sions OF all sorts from the field COW
cred by the Burlington to the fields on