On February 12, 1898, the reorganization committee bought in the Kansas Pacific, guaranteeing for the Government a bid at the sale which should equal the principal of the government debt, i. e. $6,303,000.[531] Other minor roads were also bought back on foreclosure sales, and from time to time as the mortgage committee sold the collateral back of the trust notes of 1891 the Union Pacific Railroad Company bought portions of the same. In 1899 the Union Pacific stock was increased $27,460,000, and the new issue was exchanged share for share with Oregon Short Line stock, thus regaining control of that important property. Later the same year a further increase was effected to retire $14,000,000 Oregon Short Line bonds and $11,000,000 Oregon Railway & Navigation Company preferred stock. The net result was to avoid any considerable dismemberment of the system. Whereas 7673.59 miles had been reported for 1892, 5399.01 were reported for 1899. The main line from Portland, Oregon, to Omaha and Kansas City, via Ogden, Cheyenne, and Denver, was kept intact, the principal losses being of branch lines in Nebraska and Kansas.[532]
A detailed account of the later financial operations of the Union Pacific divides the company’s recent development into three parts:[533] First, the regaining of control of the principal auxiliary systems and branch lines which the receivership had temporarily separated from the parent stem; second, the purchase of large amounts of stock in the Southern Pacific and the attempt to share in the control of the Burlington, which latter involved the purchase of Northern Pacific stock and the formation of the Northern Securities Company; and third, the sale of the stock acquired in the fight over the Burlington, and the subsequent purchase of Alton, Atchison, Baltimore & Ohio, Illinois Central, and other stocks. The repurchase of auxiliary lines has just been alluded to; and into the history of the Burlington struggle there is no need to go at length.
On June 30, 1900, the Union Pacific, Oregon Short Line, and Oregon Railroad & Navigation Companies operated 5427.89 miles of line. The system stretched from Kansas City and Council Bluffs to Ogden, and reached the Pacific coast in the Northwest at Portland. It had no rails of its own in California, but was dependent on the Southern Pacific tracks for connections both at Ogden and at Portland. The Southern Pacific extended from New Orleans through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to California, and thence up the coast to Sacramento. At Sacramento it divided; one line continued north to Portland, and one turned northeast through Nevada to Ogden, Utah. Now, in 1901 it so happened that the Southern Pacific was for sale. Crocker, Stanford, and Huntington, who had controlled it, were dead, and their successors were not eager to retain the railroad as an independent line. Mr. Harriman seized the opportunity. In 1901 he bought for the Union Pacific 750,000 shares out of a little less than 2,000,000, and the following year he increased his holdings to 900,000. The Union Pacific financed the purchase by the issue of collateral bonds. The acquisition was of vast importance. Not only did it afford a direct connection between Ogden and the coast, but it eliminated one of the Union Pacific’s four great competitors in transcontinental business, and made Mr. Harriman the dominant figure in the Southwest.
North of the Ogden-San Francisco line the conditions were less satisfactory. The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific were here supreme, and in 1901 were negotiating for the purchase of the Burlington to give them an entrance into Chicago. Mr. Harriman asked for a share in this purchase but was refused. He thereupon began to buy Northern Pacific stock in the endeavor to secure by this a half control in the more eastern road. It was the struggle which then ensued between Mr. Harriman and Mr. Hill which caused the stock exchange panic of May, 1901, and which resulted in the formation of the Northern Securities Company, in which Mr. Harriman was allotted a large though not a controlling interest. On the breakup of the Northern Securities Company the Union Pacific received back some $25,000,000 in Great Northern and $32,000,000 in Northern Pacific shares,[534] worth at market prices about $100,000,000.[535]
This Northern Securities episode had little effect on traffic conditions in the Northwest, but it did profoundly influence the financial policy of the Union Pacific during the following years.[536] The dissolution of the Northern Securities Company gave to the Union Pacific Great Northern and Northern Pacific shares, which were valuable as investments only. And as investments these stocks soon became undesirable. We have said that the combined value of the securities transferred approximated $100,000,000 at the time of transfer. From that time on the stocks appreciated in value till they were worth from $145,000,000 to $150,000,000, and yielded an income of less than 3 per cent on their market price. It was good policy to sell them, and $118,000,000 worth were accordingly disposed of, leaving some $30,000,000 worth still in the hands of the company.[537] What should be done with the enormous resources thus secured? Some of the cash was used to buy Chicago & Alton stock,—some of it was put out in demand loans. But beginning with June 30, 1906, the Union Pacific and Oregon Short Line began investment in stocks of other companies on a great scale. $41,442,028 were put into Illinois Central stock; $10,395,000 into Atchison preferred; $45,466,960 into Baltimore & Ohio, common and preferred; $19,634,280 into New York Central; and lesser amounts into Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, Chicago & Northwestern, St. Joseph & Grand Island, and other companies. In all, $131,693,271 were invested during a little over seven months.[538] This has been the characteristic feature of recent Union Pacific finance. The large purchases of stock in other roads have assured it favorable connections in the Illinois Central and in the Baltimore & Ohio, and have modified the severity of competition with the Atchison.[539] Including the Southern Pacific, its system reaches from Chicago to Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Gulf, and has an influential voice in two of the principal roads connecting Chicago with the Atlantic seaboard. At the same time, the extensive investment of Union Pacific funds to secure gains unconnected with increase of traffic over its lines has provoked merited criticism. A railroad is, after all, a machine for transporting passengers and goods, not an engine of speculation; and both from the point of view of the community which it serves and of the investors who hold its securities it is advisable that its income should depend on the business which its managers conduct and are responsible for, and not on circumstances over which they have no control. So far as Union Pacific purchases have been designed to open connections or to modify competition they have had a sound foundation. So far as they have been financial operations only they are not to be commended.[540]
From the point of view of operation the success of the Union Pacific has been remarkable. Like most roads it came out of its receivership in better shape than it went in, but with much lacking for the efficient and economical handling of its traffic. Since 1900 over $52,000,000 have been invested in betterments and in new equipment, of which some $15,000,000 have been withdrawn directly from income. Maintenance charges have also been liberal, particularly in the last few years. Grades and curves have been eliminated, steel bridges have been put in place of wooden, new and heavier rails have been laid, ballast supplied, and equipment greatly enlarged and improved. Whereas in 1896 13 per cent of all the Union Pacific system was laid with iron rails, and only 24 per cent had rails weighing more than sixty pounds to the yard, in 1907 there was no iron reported, and only 33 per cent of the track did not have rails weighing more than sixty pounds to the yard. The average capacity of freight cars was a shade over twenty tons in February, 1898; it was over thirty-four tons on June 30, 1907, and the new freight cars added during the last-named year averaged a capacity of sixty-seven tons apiece.
In consequence of these improvements the Union Pacific has been able to handle a very greatly increased business. Between 1899 and 1907 the tons of revenue freight carried one mile increased from 1,393,207,990 to 5,704,061,535, and the passengers carried one mile from 167,117,388 to 680,278,509. This fourfold increase has been packed away in the larger cars, which in turn have been combined into longer trains. Twenty-one tons are now put into the average freight car, and thirty-two freight cars form an average train. In 1899 the average car held twelve tons and twenty-nine of them carried a train-load. Sixty-six is the average number of passengers per train to-day; thirty-three was the average number in 1899. And so the increased business has not occasioned a proportionate growth in cost. It takes but little more than three times the outlay in conducting transportation to do over four times the work, and other railroad expenses have varied even less.
This increased business and less rapidly increasing cost has meant, finally, an increase in profits, and explains how it has been possible in seven years to take $15,000,000 from income for improvements besides liberally maintaining the property. The Union Pacific is prosperous as it never has been before. In 1907 its total fixed charges, in round numbers, were $8,600,000, and its net income was $45,000,000. Of this income $23,500,000 were paid out in dividends, $1,960,000 appropriated for betterments, additions, and new equipment, and $10,700,000 carried to surplus. There were $69,000,000 in bills payable, incurred since 1906, in part for improvements and the like, but largely in the course of the company’s financial experiments; but $75,000,000 in convertible bonds have been authorized to cover them. Stock and bond issues are much larger than in 1899 and will be larger still when the new convertibles are all sold. Fixed charges, however, are less than $5,000,000 greater than they were eight years ago. In order to imperil bond interest net earnings will have to decline by 81 per cent; and even were this to happen it is probable that some margin could be retained by a decrease in the generous sums now being spent for the maintenance of equipment and of road.[541]