Uniting the Roads

In the days of Hill and Harriman the West was treated to great spectacles in the building up of great railway systems. Then came the Government with the heavy hand of law, and all but extinguished the race of railway builders and consolidators. Times have changed. Now the Government smiles where it formerly frowned. Consolidations are once more in order. In the East the Van Sweringens are always good for a rumor of consolidation. There is talk of the Pennsylvania and the Norfolk coming to an agreement. But what of the West? Who are the leaders who make up consolidations there? Hale Holden, President of the C. B. & Q. is one. He has advocated that the 62 railway systems west of the Mississippi should be consolidated in four great systems. That would be a project of Herculean proportions.

Without going into the public ways crying a panacea, without driving hope and conjecture ahead of what appears as legitimate possibility, yet taking a definite and most effective part in the consolidation negotiations of the west is William Sproule, President of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

"This man Sproule" who is anything but a self-advertiser, is apparently getting results, quietly as he always does. He came to this country with an education, an affable disposition and ability that went straight to the mark. He began as a freight clerk on the Southern Pacific. In the course of 24 years of continuous service in the company he rose to the position of Traffic Manager. Then the Guggenheims, ever watchful for talent, secured him as traffic manager -member of the executive committee for the American Smelting and Refining Co. Then the Wells Fargo Express Co. got him for its President. In 1911 the Southern Pacific which had got along without Sproule for five years decided it could get along without him no longer. Sproule went back, as President of the road.

There Sproule was closely associated with Julius Kruttschnitt, chairman of the line, except for a brief period when the Government controlled the railways and he was a District Director. Now, again President, he carries on in the shoes of Huntington and Harriman. When Huntington, founder of the road, died, Harriman bought control by way of uniting the Southern Pacific with his Union Pacific. Later this union was undone when the Union Pacific sold its Southern Pacific holdings.

The old consolidation, the old dream of unity, is at an end. But the new? The times and the Government call for consolidation. There must be new dreams of rolling stock and a right of way spreading over the great plains. William Sproule is pushing toward the goal.

The negotiations are well under way for a merger between the Southern Pacific and the El Paso and Southwestern. The acquisition of this road will give the Southern Pacific a new outlet into Mexico. It will also connect the Southern Pacific directly with Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. Following the El Paso merger, the next step naturally will be a merger with the Rock Island. That would give the Southern Pacific a direct line into Chicago, what it has always desired.

Speaking last week at Tucson, Mr. Sproule said:

"Another reason why the Southern Pacific wants to go through with this merger [with the El Paso and Southwestern] is because it is now competing with railroads that have a through line to the Great Lakes and Middle-Western cities to the Pacific Coast. We, too, want to be able to say that our lines extend to Chicago from San Francisco, and this merger and a possible merger with the Rock Island system will make it possible for us to say that."

If Sproule, the affable and keen-minded, can achieve this end, it will be one of the great consolidation achievements of the decade. It will link up a new railway system from Chicago to the Coast. And, incidentally, it will virtually complete the first of the major group consolidations laid out by the Interstate Commerce Commission in its tentative plans for consolidating all the railways of the country into 19 large groups.

Group 17 of the Commission's plan reads:

"Southern Pacific; Chicago Rock Island and Pacific; El Paso and Southwestern ; San Antonio and Oransas Pass and other small roads."

If and when the job is done a bronze plaque may be erected in the Central Office of the system, bearing the words: "William Sproule Fecit."