The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-04-18


ragraph at the bottom Of the page.
That states my position exactly"
he said. 4 have had no reason to
change my position since this testimony
was given
The paragraph in question states that
If the control of the Northern Pacific
should be put into the hands of a par
! ~ hostile 10 the Great Northern. 1t
would put the Great Northern in a
position where it would have 10 make
a hard hght-either survive or perish,
or else sell out to the other interests.
! The latter would be the most business
Ike proceeding"
To the casual reader there would
seem TO be no apparent reason why
| hostile control of the Northern Pacific
should drive the Great Northern out of
! business, but that is because the casual
reader is not a great railroad manager
who deals in hundreds of millions Of
dollars, who thinks in continents and
who embraces in his plans the COM
merce of the world.
RevicW of Busy Life.
1t may help to an understanding of
the reasons for Mr.. Hills threatened
retirement and, as we'll, throw a great
light on the present tangle Of warning
interests, to review briefly the career of
James J. Hill and his relation with the
country.
But let no one imagine that the re-
tirement of Mr. Hill is anything more
than a possibility or that i'll any event
it is likely to take place within the
next few months.
Jim Hill has had a headon collision
with almost every man and every in
terest in the northwest, at some time
or another. within the last twenty
years" said one of his friends today
hoc aif1Sf ~
many of the largest eastern interests,
and up in this country we still con-
slider him an irresistible force. Whether
there is an immovable body now in his
track remains TO be seen
In 1856 James Jerome Hill borrowed
the money TO pay his way from his
fathers. farm I'm Canada to the village
Of St Paul. He has lived there ever
since. and today they say he is worth
$1O0. 900 900. But that is only brutal
and uninteresting statement of his ca
reer.
Get it from somebody else" he said.
Ask anybody else. 1 don't want to
talk about it."
Early Days in st. Paul.
They tell marvellous tales of Hills
early days in st. Paul. The man looms
so large in the development of the
northwest that his early doings are
already a part Of tradition. But from
the start he was interested in transpOr-
tatiOn. At first a shipping clerk for a
packet line running on the Mississippi.
then he organized a steamboat line Of
his own, which ran up the Red river
of the North and brought back the fuTs
which, before that time, had crawled
slowly southwark in curious two
wheeled wooden carts.
He was the first man to bring coal
to st. Paul. 1t came up the river in
steamboats, in which Hill had by this
time acquired an interest.
They ~ talking Of railroads and
building them. too, in those days. a
lot of Dutch capitalists dropped $780,
100000 i'm little line called the St Paul
q Pacific railroad. Everything which
ran east and wesI at that ambitious
time was certain 10 have Pacific as
part OF its name.
Buys a Railroad, People Laugh.
With the aid Of Canadian bankers
Mr.. Hill bought up the bankrupt road
and announced that eventually he
should build il through to Puget
Sound. People laughed. For, just to
the south, was the Northern Pacific,
aided by enormous government grants;
to the north the Canadian Pacific was
being rushed through to the coast with
Perhaps Hill did not want any gov
eminent subsidies. At any rate he did
not get any. and il was worthy of note
that the Great Northern, running from
Lake Superior to Seattle, was built
without cent of government aid.
But il took time. to force the road
westward. Out in Dakota, when Hill
took hold in 1879, the settlers were few,
far between and badly discouraged.
And from the first Mr.. Hill blazoned
on his banner the motto, Develop the
country" A
1T was years ago" said Mr.. Hill.
that I made up my mind that some
thing must be done to keep the people
along our lines from being forced to de-
pend on a single crop They were all
raising wheat. Sometimes wheat failed
and then there was the devil to pay. I
bought about 900 PolIed Angus and
shOrthorn bulls and as many thousand
blooded swine and distributed them
among the farmers all along the Great
Northern. That got the people inter
estsd in stock raising. AS a result 1
believe the Great Northern handles
more cattle and hogs today than any
road running into St. Paul"
YIN HilI's Black Bulls"
The fame Of that free distribution of
blooded cattle is still fresh in the minds
of hundreds of northwestern settlers
and they do say that YIN HeIls black
bulls have been the controlling factor
in more than one. hot political contest.
Early Mr. Hill made a rule that no
one connected in an official position
with his railroad company should have
any interest in the selection or owner
snip of tOwnsites along the road. One
or two prominent employees have been
discharged for violating this injune-
ton, for Hill has never hesitated to
cut off heads when their owners did not
obey him. Consequently you will find
plenty of former employees who de-
nounce Hill as a dOmineering and over
bearing dictator. He is dOmineering
and he is a dictator. No man could ac
complish what he has done and not
be both. But the townsite rule was
good one. 1t kept the road from be-
coming involved in local controversies.
How to Fill "Empties."
Hill and the Great Northern did not
reach Puget Sound and the Pacific until
1893. And if you read carefully from
now on you may get a clear UNDER
standing of what the present fight in
the courts is about.
At the start the Hill road found a
certain market on the Pacific coast for
eastern products. 1t could fill it's freight
cars with household and other supplies
for consumption in the state of Wash
ingtOn. But there was nothing which
Washington produced at that time
which could be shipped east at a profit.
Consequently the Hill road was forced
10 pull empty freight cars back from
the Pacific to its St Paul terminus.
That was Improbable business.
II is one Of the Hill rnaxins that IN