Omaha, without leaving the deck or platform of a carrier which he controls, and without duplicating any part of his journey.
“He has further what appears to be a dominant control in the Illinois Central Railroad running directly north from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, parallel to the Mississippi River; and two thousand miles west of the Mississippi he controls the only line of railroad parallel to the Pacific Coast, and running from the Colorado River to the Mexican border....
“The testimony taken at this hearing shows that about fifty thousand square miles of territory in the State of Oregon, surrounded by the lines of the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, and the Southern Pacific Company, is not developed. While the funds of those companies which could be used for that purpose are being invested in stocks like the New York Central and other lines having only a remote relation to the territory in which the Union Pacific System is located.”
Mr. Harriman succeeded in becoming director in 27 railroads with 39,354 miles of line; and they extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
THE AFTERMATH
On September 9, 1909, less than twelve years after Mr. Harriman first became a director in the Union Pacific, he died from overwork at the age of 61. But it was not death only that had set a limit to his achievements. The multiplicity of his interests prevented him from performing for his other railroads the great services that had won him a world-wide reputation as manager and rehabilitator of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific. Within a few months after Mr. Harriman’s death the serious equipment scandal on the Illinois Central became public,