ol of the Harriman and Hill groups. The division of territory on
both the east and the west was worked out amicably: the Northern Pacific
abandoned some of its plans for extensions in Oregon, and the Burlington
system remained as it was, with the understanding that no extensions
should be built to the Pacific coast. Later the Burlington acquired
control of a cross-country system, the Colorado Southern, extending
south to the Gulf, but to this day has made no attempt to build beyond
the lines it owned to Wyoming in 1901.

As is well known, the Northern Securities Company was subsequently
declared to exist in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and on a
decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1904 it was practically
dissolved and all its securities were returned to the original holders.
This dissolution left the Hill-Morgan interests in undisputed control of
the Burlington properties, but harmonious relations had in the meantime
been established among the contestants, assuring an equitable division
of territory and traffic. The final outcome was that the Union Pacific
Railroad Company, which had purchased with its large surplus and by the
use of its high credit many million dollars' worth of the capital stocks
of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads, received these
stocks back after several years of great prosperity and after
the appreciation in the market values of the stocks had exceeded
$60,000,000. There was no further necessity for holding them and most
of the stocks were sold at the high prices of 1905 and 1906, with actual
net profit for the Union Pacific Railroad in excess of $50,000,000. No
such gigantic financial transaction as this had ever before been carried
through by an American railroad corporation.

With an overflowing treasury in the Union Pacific, Harriman immediately
turned his face toward the East. It had for years been one of his
dreams to control a continuous line of railroad from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. As early as 1902 he had all but completed negotiations for the
acquisition of the New York Central lines in the interest of the Union
Pacific; but this plan had met with opposition from the Vanderbilts
and Morgan and had been dropped. Harriman now took advantage of an
opportunity which presented itself to acquire for the Union Pacific what
was practically a dominating interest in the Baltimore and Ohio, a
large block of whose stock was disposed of by the Pennsylvania Ra