240 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS active resistance, and finally the bitterest of opposition. The New York financiers held a meeting to voice a protest in con- demnation of ** wildcat railroading, Mr. Hill rose serenely in their meeting and said, * * I have a property in the North- west which New York bankers cannot prevent me from devel- oping. My Board of Directors is the only body that can do that, and they can do it only until the next election.'* Upon his return to St. Paul he found that his board of di- rectors had blocked his plan and had passed a resolution deny- ing the proposed construction of the new line. Mr. Hill called a meeting of the directors and when they were in the council room, he locked the door, put the key in his pocket and said,
- Now gentlemen, we will stay here until you reverse your
action. ' ' The budget was passed, the construction work went forward until finally the shrill whistle of a Great Northern locomotive broke out over the placid blue waters of Puget Sound, and the first transcontinental railroad, built without the aid of a cent of government money or a foot of govern- ment land, was finished. Shortly after this the Northern Pacific Railroad was added to the system as the result of a tremendous financial battle with Harriman. In the course of the struggle common stock in the Northern Pacific Railway rose from 25 cents to $1,000 a share. The next step was the purchase of the Burlington system. The boy who had gone out from Guelph, Ontario ^ fifty-five years before almost penniless paid $200,000,000 in cash for this railway system. For nearly half a century, in times of prosperity and in times of financial stringency, Mr. Hill's corporations have never passed a dividend. In the mind of James J. Hill we have a magnificent illustra- vtion of what the poet has called a noble discontent. The heights which he has reached to-day are but the stepping stones to bigger things for the morrow. Not only has he dominated the overland transportation of the great North- west, but he has also secured a firm grip on the trafiic systems of lake and ocean. The products of the great wheat fields poured into the mammoth milling industry of the Twin Cities are shipped out on his giant steamships to Chicago, Detroit,
