The Alaska citizen., 1912-08-05

over of the Seattle X Montana. which. like the Montana Central. had been built by us to assure ade- quate terminals on the Pacific coast and to enable construction to go for ! ward from both ends of the line at once. extended the system from Seat tie to Vancouver, British Columbia 1 In 1889 it had entered the ore pro ducing region of Northern Minnesota that was to give it a large addition to its traffic.
 Just as in the building of the | Montana Central and the Seattle & Montana. it was necessary to know thoroughly the country in advance of railroad construction and to act upon that knowledge, so these ore lands in northern Minnesota had to be examined; and some of them 1t seemed desirable to acquire with a view to the effect upon the future of the company's business.
 In January, 1899. I purchased the 1 Wright X Davis property, consisting of a line of railroad, some logging road and quantity of ore lands The purchase for s4.500.000 was made by me individually. My pur- pose was to secure the shipments of ore from these properties for the Great Northern, and the profits from the mines. if there were any profits, for the stockholders of the company The railroad was turned over to the Great Northern at cost. The ore property was transferred at cost to the Lake Superior company Qimited) organized October 20, 1900 to hold in trust, together with other ore interests acquired later. A trust to administer the Great Northern ore properties was formed December :, l90G under resolutions adopted by the Great Northern company. At the end of the last fiscal year the trustees had distributed a total of S7,750,o00 to the certificate holders: while the future value of the prop critics so covered owing to the qual- ity and accessibility of the ore and the demand of the iron industry for new supplies of raw material, must be very large
 ID 1Q11 tho cnupapy 1aci1a1 n open negotiations for the joint pur- chase of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system by the Great North ern and the Northern Pacific These were carried to a successful com pletiOn by the issue of joint collater- al trust bonds to the amount of s215,154,00O, secured by the stock of the company acquired Time has confirmed the wisdom of this act, by which through traffic arrange mems have been simplified, and the public has gained much by the draw. ing together of markets and the quick and cheap distribution of pro- ducts between Chicago, St. Louis and the Pacific coast.
 It was planned through the for nation of the Northern Securities company, to form a holding concern for the control of these three great properties. The purpose was to prevent a dispersion of securities that might follow where large amounts were held by men well ad- vanced in years, and so to secure he properties against speculative raids by interests at best not di, rectly concerned in the progress of the country served by these lines This was declared illegal under the sherman antitrust law, by a divided court, upon suit by the United States government, and the Northern Sc, curities company was dissolved.
 In 1907 the subsidiary companies controlled by the Great Northern including fourteen railway compan. ies operated as a part of it, were purchased and incorporated into the Great Northern system. In the same year l resigned the presidency of the system and became chairman of the board of directors, the office that I lay down today.
 By the construction of the Spo kane. Portland & Seattle line, along the north bank of the Columbia riv. !. CT, the Great Northern and the Nor thern Pacific obtained jointly entry over their own tracks into Port land Lines are now being con
 structed through eastern Oregon that will open up large and pro l ductive country. In 1909 the Bur lington obtained control of the Col orado & Southern, so that the Great Northern covers, directly, or over the tracks of allied lines, a terri tory reaching from Chicago, St. Paul , Minneapolis, Duluth and Superior or l the east to Puget Sound and Port } land on the west and from Galveston ) to Vancouver, B. c. The Great Northern has grown from less thar {, 400 miles of the original purchase , to 7,407 miles.
 If the freight and passenger rate - in force in 1881 had remained un