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Show NEW CONTROL OF RIO GRANDE. Edwin R. Hawley is said to be in control of the Denver 45 Rio Grande and James J. Hill is reported as the dominating power in the Western Pacific. If these rumors be true, then this section is ret to see an intense rivalry for traffic between the Rio Grande and Its connections and the Harriman roads. Hawley is said to be fighting the Morgan and Standard Oil railroads, and George H. Cu6hing gives this review of Hawley's position in the railroad world: "His best roads the Chesapeake & Ohio, the St. Louis & San Francisco, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas are almost essentially j Southern and Southwestern carriers. The South today is the one i big section which awaits some such rejuvenating touch as Harriman, j through the Union Pacific, gave to the West. If Hawley can spread j his three Southern roads over that garden spot, and really bring the Old Dominion back to its own a thing which Morgan, with all his financial prowess and his Southern Railway, has been unable to do his success is assured. One such stroke, one act of real constructive 1 ability even though it be only the redemption of the Chesapeake . & Ohio will win the support of the investors, despite the wishes of Morgan and his community of interests. To do that he must make his three big railroads the dominant factors in the rebirth of the South. There, and there only, lies his opportunity. If he can make some such record, and if he can win the financial support which would logically follow, there need be no limit to his growth; from j heir apparent he might become king through Morgan's abdication. Without such an achievement he must remain a pretender or be inconspicuously in-conspicuously absorbed into the Community as Gould was. But, first, to reconstruct he must have millions. Where is he to get them? It is not fully determined yet whether Mr. Morgan bought the Equit- able company so much to strengthen his own position as to cut off a possible ally of Hawley's. "Thus Hawley has a certain amount of financial temperament, a position, but not necessarily a commanding one, and a possible achievement. He lacks the big following and a big record. With that equipment, can he win the throne of railroad finance, which means unseating Morgan and the Standard Oil, and really doing more than Harriman dared undertake capture the East through 1 hostility and revolution? Hawley might thus be classed as the big ' j question mark of the hour." |