Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/137

Rh economy in all departments for all these long years, and finally make the roads a self-sustaining, profit earning, valuable property to its owners and to the country. The patience, trials, and ability to accomplish this end has been but little understood and recognized, although a work of as much value to the country as the more noticeable work of projecting new lines.

A brief notice of the Napoleonic figure of Edward H. Harriman seems necessary in closing this paper. He comes into the railroad battlefield after all the great lines which he now controls had been located and constructed. "The Oregon System" was here before his name had ever been mentioned in connection with any of these lines. His work so far has been to improve and perfect the lines already constructed. In this he stops at no trifles and spares no expense. The stupendous job of running the Union Pacific straight across the north arm of Great Salt Lake, and saving fifty-three miles of track and dangerous mountain grades, is a sample of his policy of improvement. By straightening lines and reducing grades he is making his roads able to do twice the work they formerly did and for one half the cost of transportation. This is just as great a gain to the country as the construction of new lines; although he has now planned and provided the money to fully develop the whole of Eastern Oregon with new branch roads as soon as the best routes have been determined by careful surveys. And now, as I write this, he is engaging in a titanic struggle—with the powers which have so long ignored the value of "The Oregon System" of the Columbia,—for the preservation and complete utilization of that system. In this contest, Oregon is vitally interested in the success of E. H. Harriman; for if he succeeds in forcing his terms on the managers