The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-08-22
If Hartman Should Die.

has never been man personal, individual ST.
preme control of many miles of railroad as E. H.
Hartman, upon whose plans much depended
He is absolute dictator over more than 10000
miles of the best railroad lines in the United States
barring only the New York Central and the Penn
sylvana systems and giving the Jim Hill roads in
the northwest competitive ''look-in" The roads
which Mr. Hartman exercises supreme control
represent nearly 20 per cent of the total mileage of
the United States and fully 25 per cent of the cap
alization the aggregate of stocks and bonds being
in excess of $3,0O0OOO,OOO in a grand total of
about $13,OOO,OO0OOO
Mr.. Harriman's plans are VIGOROUSLY in a state of
incompeteness. To Chicago newspaper men he has
said within the week that he "did not know where
he at" a confession that from the heart.
He is working out dreams of stupendous railroad
empire and if left alone in the retention of his
health another ten years he might be found IN COM
mand of the entire transportation situation of North
America.
His big career" as it now stands has been COM
pressed within the limits of ten years. Nothing
much heard of him before he engineered the
deal that redeemed Union Pacific from the gov
ernment and that only nine years ago-in
1899. True, he had shortly before bearded T. P.
Morgan in his den and forced the hitherto undis-
puted despot of Wall street to modify his Erie
organization plan, but that incident created little
excitement outside of the financial center, and when
he appeared in Washington to Save" Union Pacific
he was, comparatively speaking, an unknown man.
He is not only the acknowledged king of the rail
road world, but absolute master of the speculative
arena. 1t Hartman who took up the stock
market when Morgan and the rest of the od-tme
generals willing to lay back and let nature take
its course-that was last spring after the wreck
age corps" had unoaded at fabulous profits the
stocks bought at panic prices with public deposits in
banks kept beyond the reach of lawful owners
The Situation savers" were ready to take their
winnings and quit for year or two. Not SO with
Hartman and his chums They picked up the stock
market where Morgan and his friends had dropped
it, and, in association with H. C. Frck William
Rockefeller, John d. Archbod, young John D. Rock
efeller, H. H. Rogers, James Stlman and others,
got under stocks and began campaign that has
turned out to be the most remarkable witnessed
on the New York stock exchange.
The advance in prices may not have been war
ranted by business conditions-many think it
not-yet stocks have been boosted 20 to 60 points,
and held there. There is no going back on the rec
ord of the tape. The thing was done and the re-
covery in prices be measured in the billions of
dollars The rise has carried the average of prices
nearly two-thirds of the way to the high levels of
1907 1t astounding performance and chief
credit is due the indomitable Hartman, branded
the most undesirable citizen of Wall Street the
selected bad man" from long list of wealthy
malefactors."
It is not the purpose of this letter to refute the
attacks on Mr. Hartman to minimize excuse
his financial immoralities but simply to take his
present measure as Wall street proposition and to
speculate in an entirely legitimate manner what
might happen if he should be removed from the
sphere of his astounding activities.
Nobody magines for instant that the values
he has created helped create would be wiped out
by his demise, but such event could hardly fail
to produce great confusion in the transportation
world and in Wall Street for the time being
For, be it known Mr. Hartman leaves no heir
to whom he can transmit his genius and no trus-
tees qualified to carry out his misunderstood and
less than half-fnished plans He has been law
unto himself, and in the conduct of his affairs he has
surrounded himself with agents and groups, each
acquainted in part whole with fractional features