In 1901, the Northern Pacific was an unlikely prize: a
twice-bankrupt construction of the federal government, it was a
two-bit railroad (literally--five years back, its stock traded for
twenty-five cents a share). But it was also a key to connecting
eastern markets through Chicago to the rising West. Two titans of
American railroads set their sights on it: James J. Hill, head of
the Great Northern and largest individual shareholder of the
Northern Pacific, and Edward Harriman, head of the Union Pacific
and the Southern Pacific. The subsequent contest was unprecedented
in the history of American enterprise, pitting not only Hill
against Harriman but also Big Oil against Big Steel and J. P.
Morgan against the Rockefellers, with a supporting cast of enough
wealthy investors to fill the ballroom of the Waldorf
Astoria.
The story, told here in full for the first time, transports us
to the New York Stock Exchange during the unfolding of the earliest
modern-day stock market panic. "Harriman vs. Hill "re-creates the
drama of four tumultuous days in May 1901, when the common stock of
the Northern Pacific rocketed from one hundred ten dollars a share
to one thousand in a mere seventeen hours of trading--the result of
an inadvertent "corner" caused by the opposing forces. Panic
followed and then, in short order, a calamity for the "shorts," a
compromise, the near-collapse of Wall Street brokerages and banks,
the most precipitous decline ever in American stock values, and the
fastest recovery. Larry Haeg brings to life the ensuing stalemate
and truce, which led to the forming of a holding company, briefly
the biggest railroad combine in American history, and the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling against the deal, launching the reputation of
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes as the "great dissenter" and
President Theodore Roosevelt as the "trust buster." The forces of
competition and combination, unfettered growth, government
regulation, and corporate ambition--all the elements of American
business at its best and worst--come into play in the account of
this epic battle, whose effects echo through our economy to this
day.
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