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Show uy RAILROADS IN A BIG WAR Tho old rlvalrv between tho Hill and' Harriman railroad systems between be-tween the Missouri river and the Pacific Pa-cific coast has broken out afresh and Harriman's Southern Pacific has Just dealt Hill's Burlington line a staggering stag-gering blow by cutting the latter lino off from all San Francisco and California Cal-ifornia traffic. Despite the fact that this is the most titanic struggle the western railroad world has known for 25 years, It Ib being waged so silently that the public Is scarcely aware that the. blg-rivals blg-rivals aro no longer standing together to-gether and working harmoniously, as they havq donq in . tho. J?at decade. ,Tho cause, of. Lhp fgtij. h5 the ownership owner-ship of a Vlmple$2.50 on each tlckot sold "by th eastern lines to. the Pacific Pa-cific coast, but tho effect produced Is tromendpus. And still, gre-ater effects are promised by tho generals In command com-mand of the campaign. The situation Ib complicated by tho fact that Hill, In tho fight, has I the assistance of the big Rock Island Is-land railroad, which is In a position posi-tion similar to that of tho Burlington, Bur-lington, while WeBtern Pacific, tho now Gould road to tho Pacific, is aiding Southern Pacific Union Pacific, mai.i trunk of tho Harriman syBtem, is, In tho present fracas, only a "looker on" and a bystander, and is taking no part In the struggle. However, the latter road is renplug a golden harvest har-vest while the other lines "scrap" among themselves. In faot, because of tho big fight, Union Pacific today is the only railroad rail-road operating through trains between Chicago and St. Louis and San Francisco Fran-cisco which traverse tho central portion por-tion of the country. The trouble began brewing a year ago when tho intestate Commerce Commission ordered Southern Pacific and other roads to reduce fare from Ogden to the Pacific coast from $30 to $25, but did not order a reduction of the through faro from Missouri river points to the coast At that time, and for 10 years previous thereto, through cars had been operated operat-ed over Burlington and Rock Island lines as far as Denver, thonce ovo Rio Grande to Ogden, where they were turned over to South Pacific for the haul to the const. At that time the roads caBt and west of Ogden sim-plv sim-plv cut the rate in two parts, each taking an equal portion. When the Interstate Commerce Commissioner's new rate was ordered, Southern Pacific Pa-cific demanded that the eastern lines continue to accept the samo proportion propor-tion as formerly accepted, but both tho Burlington and Rock Island linos refused and demanded a higher percentage per-centage of the cost of the ticket For almost twelve months the trnrflc officials of tho different systems Involved In-volved havo been seeking au adjustment, adjust-ment, but last week a crisis was reoched and Southern Pacific notified both Burlington and Rock Island systems sys-tems that tho cars formerly operated over those roads would no longer be accepted from them, and that in future all this traffic would bo handed over to Union Pacific, which had made no demnnds for an Increased pcrccntago of the receipts. Accordingly both "Burlington and Rock Islaud have been forced to discontinue dis-continue all through cars to California via Denver and Salt Lake, and tho great traffic onco enjoyed by these roads is now being hauled by Union Pacific. The two systems which have found tholr coast business practically rulnod by tho arbitrary action of Southern Pacific have not yet found a way to "come back" at the latter lino, but are promising that their next move will make tho Harriman peoplo ait up and take notice. |