y all
the old railroad abuses. These inter-railroad purchases therefore became
so unpopular that the Pennsylvania sold its Baltimore and Ohio stock.
At this time Edward H. Harriman of the Union Pacific, who had at his
disposal vast funds of the latter property which he had obtained by the
settlement of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific deal, decided to
acquire control of a system of roads in the East in order to establish a
complete transcontinental line in the interest of the Union Pacific. It
was the theory that such a purchase by the Union Pacific would not defy
the law or outrage the popular conscience because the Union Pacific,
unlike the Pennsylvania, did not compete with the Baltimore and Ohio,
but was only a western extension of that system. Harriman in August,
1906, therefore purchased nearly all the Pennsylvania holdings in the
old Garrett property and thus obtained virtual control.

At this same time the Baltimore and Ohio had been developing a
"community of interest" plan on its own account. In the year 1908, it
acquired a substantial stock interest in the newly reorganized Reading
Company, which controlled the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and
the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company. It did not obtain
a majority interest but, with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
Railroad of the New York Central system, it now controlled the Reading
system. The Reading Company meanwhile had secured control of the Central
Railroad of New Jersey, over the lines of which the Baltimore and Ohio
reached New York City.

In the following years the Baltimore and Ohio property was still further
rounded out by purchasing the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton, a small
system of doubtful value radiating through the State of Ohio and, by
additional extensions, into the soft coal fields of West Virginia. New
energy was put into the expansion and improvement of the southwestern
lines to St. Louis, while the eastern terminal properties were still
further improved.

The practical control of the Baltimore and Ohio remained in the hands of
the Union Pacific interests until 1913. In that year, however, the
Union Pacific liquidated its holdings by distributing them to its
own individual stockholders in the shape of a special dividend. The
Baltimore and Ohio thus became once more an independent property.

The story of the Baltimore and Ohio for the past decade has been mainly
a record of a growing, well-managed, and ef