Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/297

Rh these are found the reason for their hysterical defense of him.

I shall briefly outline the railroad situation in Mexico, and tell the story of the railway merger.

Today the main lines of Mexican railroads aggregate 12,500 miles. Of this mileage the Southern Pacific company controls and will probably soon own 8,941 miles, or nearly three-fourths of the total. These lines consist of:

The Southern Pacific in Mexico, 950 miles; the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient, 279 miles; the Pan-American, 296 miles; the Mexican, 327 miles; the National Railways of Mexico, 7,089 miles.

Of these the Southern Pacific is the only one that is being operated openly as the property of the Harriman heirs. The Orient road is operated under the presidency of A. E. Stilwell, a Harriman ally, whose vice-president, George H. Ross, is a director of the Chicago & Alton road, a Harriman property which the Orient road has traffic agreements. Construction is still going on on both of these roads and they are drawing from the Diaz government about $20,000 of subsidy for every mile built, or nearly enough to build the road.

The Pan-American railroad was recently acquired by David H. Thompson, who is the nominal president. Thompson was the United States ambassador to Mexico, where he seems to have represented the Harriman interests first and the other American interests afterwards. After securing the road, he resigned the ambassadorship. It is a pretty generally accepted fact that Thompson was acting for Harriman in securing the road. Harriman men are associated with him as directors of the road. The especial purpose of Thompson's securing the road was to incorporate it as a part of Harriman's