History of the Union Pacific: A Financial and Economic Survey – (1966) Reprint of 1923 book (E-2)

412 pages

Hard Cover

Published 1966 REPRINT (first published 1923)

Table Of Contents

I     The Pacific Railroad Acts  3

Ii    The History Of The Construction Contracts  23

Iii   The Work Of Construction  55

Iv   Congressional Scandals: Credit Mobilier; The Mulligan Letters  71

V    The Decade From I870 To I880  99

Vi   Disputes And Litigation Over The Interest Question  I23

Vii  The Kansas Pacific Consolidation  147

Viii Auxiliary And Branch Lines  175

Ix    The Administration Of Charles Francis Adams . .  198

X     Receivership And Reorganization  24.I

Xi    The Growth Of The Union Pacific From The Time Of The Reorganization Down To 1905  273

Xii   The Harriman System 307

Xiii  The Dissolution Of The Union Pacific-Southern Pacific Combination  352

Xiv  Recent Operations  373

Xv   General Considerations 389

Bibliography . .  40i

Index 405

PREFACE

The railroad situation today constitutes a problem of far greater moment than ever before. Permanent business prosperity cannot exist unless we have a healthy and permanent solution of the railroad problem. The story of the Union Pacific shows the vitality of a rightly located railroad, and its power, under competent management, of working free from the handicaps of financial exploitation, and becoming a source of profit to its stockholders and of service to the entire community.

The Union Pacific together with its western connection, the Central Pacific, was the first and for many years the only transcontinental railroad. The sixty years of its existence saw the opening up of the western half of the country, and in this vast development the Union Pacific bore a chief part. In later years, as a Harriman road, the Union Pacific has been identified with perhaps the greatest of American railway operators. Yet though the road has often been in the limelight, its dramatic story has never been assembled in its entirety. The present work gives a general account of the Union Pacific Railroad from its birth during the Civil War, in 1862, to the annual report of the directors for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1921, after the return of the railroads to private control following the World War.

Many important lessons are to be learned from the successive stages of Union Pacific history : the launching of the road with fervid but hasty enthusiasm arid in a peculiar degree with national backing; the profligacy and chicanery of old-time railroad management, by which resources and good will were alike thrown away; the collapse and receivership; the speedy revival and expansion in the hands of a competent management; the final stage of close governmental supervision of private initiative culminating in the Railroad Administration and the Esch-Cummins Law of 1920.

The peculiar relations long subsisting between the United States government and the Union Pacific bring out the bungling, bureaucratic processes of government and the great dangers of uninformed public opinion, often demanding legislation the effect of which is to punish the men of today for the misdeeds of the former generation and, in the process, imposing a heavy handicap on legitimate business development.

The personal testimony of the early promoters, of the Credit Mobilier people, of Jay Gould, Russell Sage, and other speculators of the past generation, and in more recent times of E. A. Harriman, Otto H. Kahn, and their associates, is voluminous and readily accessible among the government publications. There exists also a mass of documentary evidence in the shape of reports, court records, and similar data. This abundant source material makes it possible to present the full financial and economic history of this great railroad company, the character of its relations with the federal government, and the account of the process by which the Union Pacific expanded from a single stretch of main line a thousand miles in length to the great system which the road controls and operates today.

NELSON TROTTMAN. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 25, 1923.

The book is in Very Good condition.  There are no marks, writings or tears, the binding is strong. Almost no shelf wear.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0007DNMXM
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ A.M. Kelley; First Edition (January 1, 1966)