intensely practical.

While Morgan declined the proffered control of the Union Pacific on the
theory that it was only a "streak of rust" running through a sparsely
settled country and across an arid desert, Harriman dreamed of the great
undeveloped West filling up with people during the following generation,
of the empty plains being everywhere put under cultivation, and of
the arid desert responding to the effects of irrigation on a large and
comprehensive scale. He foresaw the wonderful future of the Pacific
States--the opening up of natural resources in the mountains, the steady
stream of men and women who would ultimately emigrate to this vast
section from the East and from foreign lands and who would build up
towns and great cities. At the same time, with that practical mind of
his, Harriman calculated that the Union Pacific Railroad--situated in
the heart of this huge area, having the most direct and shortest line to
the Pacific, and with all traffic from the East converging over half a
dozen feeder lines to Omaha and Kansas City--would haul enormous
amounts of tonnage just as soon as the Western country revived from the
depression under which it had been struggling for half a dozen years.

When Harriman took hold of the Union Pacific he had already determined
to absorb the Oregon lines, with their tributaries running up into the
Puget Sound country and to the Butte mining district; to get hold of the
Southern Pacific properties at the earliest possible moment; and to link
the Illinois Central in some way to the Union Pacific so that the latter
would have its own independent outlets to Chicago and St. Louis. All
these plans he ultimately accomplished, as well as many others, some of
which his farseeing imagination may have conceived then.

While Harriman was able very promptly to carry through his first scheme
and recapture the Oregon lines, which had been separately reorganized as
a result of the receivership, he found it a far more difficult matter to
secure a dominating interest in the great system of railroads controlled
by Collis P. Huntington. Huntington was a hard man to deal with. Himself
one of the practical railroad magnates of his time, he also had the gift
of vision and undoubtedly foresaw that the ultimate result must be a
consolidation of the properties; but he fully expected that his company
would absorb the Union Pacific. Had it not been that during the panic
period the Southern Pacific had heavy