in his own circle. The father died in April, 1881, at Jacksonville, surrounded by all the comforts that wealth could buy. He was but sixty-eight at his death, and had suffered much for nearly twenty years.

YOUNG HARRIMAN IN WALL STREET

Edward Henry Harriman entered Wall Strect late in the 'sixties, as a clerk. At that time he gave little indication of his ability. Socially, he was well-liked. He is described as having been full of fun and fond of society in the best sense of the term. He was noted, He was noted, however, for a mind of his own. What he wanted he generally got, but his desires were neither very sweeping nor very important.

Many tales are told on Wall Street of the way he came to be able to buy a scat on the New York Stock Exchange, which he did on August 13, 1870. One, for which I have been able to find no authority at all, is to the effect that he was plunging in the market with all he possessed during the celebrated "corner in gold" engineered by Gould, Fisk, Kimber, and others of their kind, and that he took his profits on "Black Friday" and invested the whole of those profits in a seat on the Exchange. This matter is not clear, but better authority seems to lie behind the statement that in this venture into the Exchange he was assisted by a relative, one of the Oliver Harriman branch of his father's family. At any rate, he went in, in 1870, as a trader on the floor of the Stock Exchange.

He married early in life, and married very well. His wife was Miss Mary Averell, of Rochester, whose father was a capitalist and a successful railroad man. He is said to have made a large sum of money in the Rome, Watertown, & Ogdensburg Railroad. This marriage considerably strengthened the hands of Edward H. Harriman for the battle of life. It has been in every way a very fortunate and happy marriage.

So came to his own the man who was destined to become the greatest financial figure of a day of tremendous financial figures. It was a beginning humble enough. The story of the man from that time on is almost purely financial, yet Wall Street knows nothing about it. For nearly thirty-seven years this man has lived the life of Wall Street, yet there are few in the Street of Discontent who even know that he is a member of the Exchange or has ever been. Men who speak of him are apt to say that the

time will come when he will "come a cropper," when he will be caught in a "corner," smashed in some great "raid," or ruined by some other stock market contingency. For such a critic, it might well be profitable to review the career of this man since he joined the Stock Exchange.

He came at a moment that was ripe for the making of men. making of men. He had gone through the terrors of "Black Friday." He had watched for some years the campaigns of those terrible gamblers, Fisk, Gould, Drew, and Vanderbilt. He studied them and their methods in every possible detail. Knowing them, he decided that he could go into the Stock Exchange and hold his own in spite of them. It was a time when men played the game with aces up their sleeves. Perhaps he learned sleight-of-hand to meet the occasion should it ever arise. Certainly, he had learned wonderful agility, a remarkable diversity, and an almost superhuman watchfulness before he ventured to put his head within this den of lions.

ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE

Of his individual trading there are, of course, no records. The reporting of the Stock Exchange had not at that time reached the effectiveness of its present day standard. He bought and sold on the market without exciting any comment, without disturbing the current of events. The very few of the old traders who remember him in those early days say that he was very quick, very active, seizing a profit where it appeared, taking a small loss quickly rather than risk a large one. It was a great period for "scalping" the market, and wealth came quickly to the nimble trader. At the end of his fifth year, men had come to recognize in him one of the few who could make money whatever way the market went, and who knew how to keep it when he had it.

Let those who think this man likely to be caught in some panic study for a moment the nature of the Wall Street market from which he drew his fortune. In 1871 and 1872, when he had been on the market but a little time, came the fires of Chicago and Boston, with their resultant panics. In the following year he watched the downfall of fifty-seven firms in the disastrous panic that followed the bankruptcy of Jay Cooke & Co. That panic lasted one hundred days. The year before, he had seen the Jay Gould corner in Chicago & Northwestern. In 1876, he helped to crumble into fragments the rosy dreams of those who had

built the "anthracite corner," and took his profits from the collapse of Jersey Central from $110 per share to $6.

These things had happened before Mr. Edward H. Harriman was thirty years of age. He had had a part in all of them. He spent his time on the floor of the Stock Exchange, watching for them. He learned from them many lessons of prudence and of daring, and not a single lesson of the lot has he ever forgotten. He put them all to good effect when the Grant & Ward failure and the "White Corner" came in 1884. Later, in 1890, when the world was shaken by the Baring collapse, he was able to stand still and watch the flood of panic swirling past him-quiet, cool, watching his moment to dash into the flood and out again.

One may trace through this period the making of the man, but only in the dimmest outline. He was not doing an individual task. He was but one of a thousand, trading on the floor of the Exchange. When one has pointed out the pitfalls of that first ten years, the panics, the great campaigns, and has said that he came. through these greater, stronger, and richer than he began them, one has said almost all there is to say. He was not, in that day, a creator of anything new. He was merely turning over and over the things already in existence. The life and labor of a broker can be written in figures, and that is about all there is in it.

FROM BROKER TO RAILROAD MAN

It was not until 1883 that he came actively into the railroad field. At that time, he had At that time, he had come to be known as a capitalist, one of the few who had gathered together a great fortune in the ten troubled years between 1870 and 1880. He was credited with having in his strong box a fair list of stocks picked up at low prices in the various panics. Along in 1883, he was elected a director of the Illinois Central Railroad. He was at that time working in close friendship with Stuyvesant Fish, who was elected second vice-president of the road in the same year. Mr. Fish had also been a member of the Stock Exchange from 1876 to 1879, and the two young men went into the Illinois Central to work along together. In 1887, Mr. Harriman became vice-president, with Mr. Fish as president.

The seven-year period from 1889 to 1896 may be passed over briefly. Mr Harriman played no prominent part in it. He watched

the struggle for traffic, the disastrous rate wars, the Bryan panic, and the utter collapse of the railroad world in 1893; but he appears to have done little or nothing to bring himself before the public eye during that time. In fact, by 1894 even his part in the Illinois Central had been largely forgotten, except by the closest students of events. He was doing what he had so well trained himself to do-lying back and waiting his time.

So he came to his destiny. Through the long night that came upon the business world in the early 'nineties he rested, making himself strong for the day that was to follow. He gathered about him money-his own and other men's. He had not been taken by surprise in the disastrous period; far from it. He had made money. He was still a member of the Stock Exchange, and he kept his finger always upon the pulse of the business world, which is the tape that runs through the tickers of the Wall Street offices. There was no other man more skilled to read the meaning of the fluctuations that were marked in the figures on the tape, nor any other quicker to act upon the knowledge that he gained.

This period from 1890 to 1897 may be considered a dividing line in the fortunes of Mr. Harriman. Prior to that time he had been a broker, and his slight departure into railroading was but an incident. Since that time, he has been a railroad man, and his operations in the stock market have been incidental. As a broker, in the twenty years between 1870 and 1890, he had gained a reputation for shrewdness, quickness, alertness, and daring. He had not achieved distinction, as had James R. Keene, for instance. He was neither the most spectacular nor the most solidly successful member of the Stock Exchange.

THE MAN AND HIS METHOD

Mr. Harriman was about forty years of age when he set his feet upon the path that was to lead him into sovereign power. Many of the characteristics of his boyhood had fallen from him. The friends of his youth describe him as frank, open, fond of gaiety and fun. The twenty-odd years of the Stock Exchange had effectually removed the frankness and the openness. In their place he had a studied reserve, a careful holding of himself in leash, a fixed resolve that no man should be able to guess the real thoughts and motives that lay within his mind. He had, by sheer effort of

will, made of himself a psychological puzzle. So he has remained to this day. His plans are deep in mystery, even to the men he calls his friends. They will know only a few weeks before the world will know, just what Mr. Harriman proposes to do in any particular event. In the matter of the 10 per cent. dividend on Union Pacific stocks last summer, there were directors who declared afterward that they had not the slightest idea that the dividend was to be over 7 per cent., even when they adjourned from the directors' meeting after delegating to the executive committee the right to declare the dividends as they saw fit.

His fondness for fun found vent throughout this period in mad cross-country riding with the Meadowbrook Club, in the driving of fast trotters bred from his own stud, in devotion to whist, and in many other similar pursuits. He has never been entirely a slave to work; diversion is one of his axioms. He has never taken to the show horses, as Judge Moore has; to the races, as James R. Keene; nor to the automobile, as W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr. He seems to like sport for its own sake.

The quality of directness, noted in his boyhood days, intensified as he grew older. It had been the moving force behind him as he progressed from. penury to wealth. It was to be the power behind him to the end. In fact, it became and is to-day the one factor that stands out from his diverse character. It has made of him, in the popular fancy, a financial Juggernaut that stops for nothing. The Morgan forces withstood him in 1901, and he did not hesitate to create a situation that led to a panic in the Stock Exchange. Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, the comrade of his young manhood, withstood him in this last year, and he crushed Mr. Fish as he would an enemy. A hundred lesser instances of this same characteristic could be adduced.

When Mr. Thomas F. Ryan bought the Hyde stock in the Equitable Life a little time ago, Mr. Harriman decided that he wanted half of that stock, and that he wanted other trustees appointed besides those whom Mr. Ryan had chosen. He stated his proposition in these words:

"I will take half your stock. I don't know what it cost and do not care provided you will agree to the appointment of two additional trustees who will be absolutely independent."

In discussing this matter on the witness stand, Mr. Harriman very succinctly described

the habit of mind with which he handles matters of importance:

"What I was going to do myself, I had clear in my mind, and I had done it as I am in the habit of doing it!"

Mr. Ryan stated that Mr. Harriman had threatened that unless he, Mr. Ryan, consented to the arrangement, Mr. Harriman would "use all his influence against Mr. Ryan." Particularly, it was admitted, would Mr. Harriman use his political influence in such a battle, to secure hostile legislation at Albany. It was in reply to a question as to whether or not he had done anything of this kind that Mr. Harriman let slip the phrase which has since become a household word: "Not yet!"

HIS INDOMITABLE WILL

This terrible directness stands out in every relationship of Mr. Harriman's life. Along in July, 1899, the Harriman Alaska Expedition reached the end of its charted course. Beyond lay the Bering Sea, huge, unknown, treacherous. It was time to turn back, but Mrs. Harriman wanted to see Siberia.

"Very well," said Mr. Harriman, "we will go to Siberia!"

They had not been under way an hour when the ship ran upon a hidden reef. Mr. John Burroughs, the historian of the expedition, tells the rest of the story:

"Some of us hoped this incident would cause Mr. Harriman to turn back. Bering Sea is a treacherous sea; it is shallow; it has many islands; and in summer is nearly always draped in fog. But our host was a man not easy to turn back; in five minutes he was romping with his children again as if nothing had happened."

They went to Siberia. The fog was so dense and the charts so imperfect that they missed an island they had hoped to touch-but they went to Siberia. The master of the ship would have considered the expedition a failure if they had not.

Another, though a lesser, characteristic often noted is the feverish thirst for information, for facts, for impressions. He asks blunt questions, difficult of evasion. He is the man who

wants to know." It was this desire that led him, in the midst of his Union Pacific campaign, to devote months of his summer to a cruise to Alaska in 1889, into a far country, out of reach of the telegraph, even the cable. It was this, again, at the close of the Russian

Japanese War, which led him to go to Japan, into a country beset with dangers. He wanted to know about Alaska and about Japan. He does not like to get his information out of books, nor from the lips of men. He wants to see it for himself.

The

A few years ago, bids were called for the construction of a few miles of macadamized road near Mr. Harriman's country estate. bids ran regularly about $95,000 to $100,000 for this amount of road. Mr. Harriman wanted to find out about this matter, how much profit there was in it. His curiosity carried him so far that he himself put in a bid for the work at $25,000 and got it. Report says that it cost him about $75,000 cash to get that particular bit of information-if, indeed, he did get it.

man

HIS UNOBTRUSIVE CHARITIES

Men who do not know him write of the Harri'money-madness." The charge is not well founded. He is not money-mad, as the late Russell Sage was money-mad. He desires money, but almost entirely for the power money gives him. He is not niggardly far from it. One hears little of his philanthropy. One of his friends explains this fact.

"His philanthropy is the kind that shuts its mouth and opens its hands. When he gives, he always stipulates that his charity shall not be made a headline in a newspaper!"

That is the reason why the world has not heard of many things. Down on the East Side of New York, in a district ridden with poverty, stands a fine square building which was built at a net cost of nearly $250,000. It is a club for the boys of the district. It is free to all boys, has no religious trammels, has no "services," "classes," nor other bugbears to scare a healthy boy away. It was built by Edward H. Harriman. In the latest annual report, it appears that the expense of running if for four months, amounting to about $4,700, was met by "a trustee.' Mr. Harriman might have concealed his bounty under the phrase but the secretary, in a moment of forgetfulness, wrote that this expense was met by Mr. Harriman. He also speaks, with feeling, of the interest taken in the institution by Mr. Harriman and all his family. It is no mere money-service, but real charity.

The home life of this man has always been beyond reproach. His two daughters, Miss Mary Harriman and Miss Cornelia Harriman,

are very popular in their own rather exclusive set. The boys, Averell and Roland, are very young. young. A large part of the year is spent at Arden, N. Y., where the summer cottage stands. The estate is in the midst of the Ramapo Mountains, a very beautiful region. Reports indicate that the total amount of land under the control of Mr. Harriman in that section is well up to 30,000 acres a veritable kingdom. It includes a stock farm and many other luxuries. There the Harrimans delight to do their entertaining. A week-end visit to the Arden house is said to be a real delight to the limited circle to whom its hospitality extends.

The city house stands in a section of Fifth Avenue noted for its quiet aristocracy. It is far south of the little area made fearful by the architectural extravagances of Senator Clark and some of his compeers. Just above it, on the other side of the street, stand the old Vanderbilt mansions.

When a man meets Mr. Harriman at one of his clubs, at his house, or at his office-just as likely at one as at another-for a "conference" on business matters, he finds a very different man from the purely social Mr. Harriman. In conference, this man knows exactly what he wants, and he evidently intends to get it. He makes his propositions flatly. Questions of money are of small import. It is a question of policy into which he will throw his finest effort. His idea of coöperation is that all men shall assist him in carrying out his plans. His conception of harmony in the Union Pacific is that no man shall lift up his voice and object to the dictum laid down by the President of the Railroad. He does not say flatly, "I am the King." He merely is the King.

Recently, on a Western trip, he made, in effect, this statement concerning his functions: "My work has been to harmonize different opinions held by the members of the board of directors!"

That statement went the rounds of the press and the people. As it ran on the tickers of Wall Street, it raised quite a lot of comment. The writer brought it to the attention of a man who once was a director of the Union Pacific, but is not now. He laughed:

"I guess the reporter got him wrong," he said; "I guess he really said, 'Harrimanize!'"

I

N THE to-morrow of twenty-five years hence, a great contrast will be noted in the commerce of the great central cities. At the present time, over seventy-five per cent. of the overland traffic from points in the far West changes ownership at Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis. The time will come when these cities will lose this position. Up to the present moment, this fact has stood squarely in the way of a transcontinental railroad in the United States. Millions of tons of freight each year have been carried through the expensive region about Chicago, re-handled there at heavy cost, then forwarded to eastern or western points. This is sheer waste, and will entirely disappear within a very short time. The great middlemen of these central cities must seek new vocations.

For this matter of economy is still to be the basic principle of railroad operation. The whole problem will still be to get the cost of transportation down to bed-rock. The process of doing this will entail most sweeping changes.

DINING CARS AND SLEEPERS

In the passenger service, the Pullman Company will practically disappear. Long before the 25-year period is over, every railroad that can possibly do so will own and operate its own sleepers, its own dining cars. The Canadian Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul have for years been successful in operating their own cars, and have made money at it. All the great systems will follow in their wake..

The business of the Pullman Company has been well conducted. It has been in many respects of great benefit to the railroads, taking from their hands a load of responsibility and labor during the two decades when the hands of the railroad makers were very full indeed of matters having to do with the construction of the roads. The contracts into which the railroads have entered with this company are very strict;

indeed, in nearly all cases, so exclusive that no sleeping car other than Pullmans may run upon the railroad. The service is a hard-and-fast monopoly upon many of the railroads.

Signs are not wanting that the railroads are tiring of this monopoly, and signs are even more in evidence that the revolt against it will be backed up by the people and the legislators. The inclusion of this company as a 66 common carrier" under the Hepburn law, and the cutting out of the pass privilege to it as well as to the roads are signs of this change. Within the next few years the Pullman Company will probably cease the operation of sleeping cars and devote itself entirely to the building of them under orders from the railroads. This change, when it comes, will probably lead to cheaper accomodations for the travelling public, and better service in every way.

THE PASSING OF EXPRESS COMPANIES

The express companies will also disappear. Recently the Rock Island formed an express company of its own, which will take over the business of the United States and Wells Fargo companies on the lines of that system within the next three years. As the contracts run out on other railroads, this example will be followed. Already the Denver & Rio Grande has its own company, the Globe. Under the present arrangement, the railroads get but 50 per cent. of the total charge, while the express companies take the other 50 per cent. The arrangement is highly profitable to the express companies, but not at all satisfactory to the great bulk of the railroads. So true is this that the Southern Pacific and the Vanderbilt lines, at least, have tried to even up by buying great blocks of the stocks of the express companies.

The result will probably be that in the long run the express service will merge, to a certain extent, with the freight service. The rates will drop to a level probably considerably above the present rates on the highest class of