es under operation. In
recent years large soft coal deposits have been discovered and developed
on many of the branch lines, and today the coal tonnage of the Southern
Railway is exceeding the relatively unstable lumber tonnage of two or
three decades ago.

CHAPTER XI. THE LIFE WORK OF EDWARD H. HARRIMAN

In a previous chapter there has been related the early history of the
great line that first joined the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans--the
Union Pacific. But the history of this property in recent years is
almost as startling and romantic as its story in the sixties and
seventies. It was not until recent days that the golden dreams
entertained by these early builders came true. The man who really
reaped the harvest and who at the same time gave the Union Pacific that
position among American railroads which its founders foresaw was the
last, and some writers think, the greatest of all American railroad
leaders.

The Union Pacific, a bankrupt railroad in 1893, lay quiescent under the
stress of the hard times that lasted until 1898. The long story of its
tribulations hardly made it a tempting morsel for the men who were
then most active in the railroad field. In 1895 or 1896 the several
protective committees which had been appointed to look after the
interests of stockholders and defaulted bondholders had tried to induce
J. P. Morgan to undertake the reorganization, but he had refused.
To reorganize the Union Pacific meant that not far from one hundred
millions of new capital would sooner or later have to be supplied, and
there was no other banking-house in America at that time which seemed
strong enough for the task. Smaller concerns were all involved in the
Morgan syndicates or in other undertakings, and a combination of these
at the moment seemed out of the question.

About this time the German-Jewish bankinghouse of Kuhn, Loeb and Company
began looking into the situation. Kuhn, Loeb and Company were known as
a very conservative but very rich concern with close connections in
Frankfort and Berlin. Though it had been long established in New York
it had not been identified with the railroad reorganization movement nor
had it been prominent as an investing or underwriting institution.
But now the active partner of the business, Jacob H. Schiff, set
out seriously to persuade the various committees to adopt a plan of
reorganization which he had devised. Though he made some progress,
he soon found much secret oppos