ion were greatly augmented. A period
of reform had now begun, and after 1909 a wave of "progressivism"
overspread the country. New interpretations were given to the Sherman
Act, and suits were soon under way against all the railroads and
industrial combinations which appeared to be infringing that statute.
The great Standard Oil and Tobacco trusts were dissolved in this period,
and a suit which was brought to divorce the Union Pacific and the
Southern Pacific Company was finally decided against the Union Pacific,
with the result that the two big properties were separated. The Union
Pacific turned a large amount of its Southern Pacific stock holdings
over to the Pennsylvania Railroad, in exchange for which it received
from the Pennsylvania the remainder of the Baltimore and Ohio stock
which the Pennsylvania interests had retained after the sale to the
Union Pacific in 1906. Immediately after this, the Union Pacific
management, seeing no particular advantage in retaining an interest in
the Baltimore and Ohio, gave the shares to its own stockholders in a
special dividend.

Thus, since Harriman's death, the Union Pacific Railroad has once more
returned to very much its original condition prior to its acquisition
of the Southern Pacific. It still controls the Illinois Central and
the Chicago and Alton and has investment interests in a large number of
other railroads. It is still the premier system of the West and promises
to remain so indefinitely; but the bold Harriman touch is gone and will
never return.

CHAPTER XII. THE AMERICAN RAILROAD PROBLEM

During the last fifty years the railroad has perhaps been most familiar
to the American people as a "problem." As a problem it has figured
constantly in politics and has held an important position in many
political campaigns. The details that comprise this problem have
been indicated to some extent in the preceding pages--the speculative
character of much railroad building, the rascality of some railroad
promoters, the corrupting influence which the railroad has too
frequently exerted in legislatures and even in the courts. The attempts
to subject this new "monster" to government regulation and control have
furnished many of the liveliest legislative and judicial battles in
American history. Farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and the traveling
public have all had their troubles with the transportation lines, and
the difficulties to which these struggles have given rise ha