HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES Volume I: The English Patents of Monopoly, by William H. Price. 8vo, $1.50, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume II: The Lodging-House Problem in Boston, by Albert B. Wolfe. 8vo, $1.50, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume III: The Stannaries; A study of the English Tin Miner, by George R. Lewis. 8vo, $1.50, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume IV: Railroad Reorganization, by Stuart Daggett. 8vo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume V: Wool-Growing and the Tariff, by Chester W. Wright. 8vo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume VI: Public Ownership of Telephones on the Continent of Europe, by Arthur N. Holcombe. 8vo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume VII: The History of the British Post Office, by J. C. Hemmeon. 8vo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 17 cents. Volume VIII: The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States, by M. T. Copeland. 8vo, $2.00, _net._ Postage 17 cents. HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS [Illustration] VOL. IV RAILROAD REORGANIZATION BY STUART DAGGETT, PH.D. INSTRUCTOR IN ECONOMICS IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1908 COPYRIGHT 1908 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published May 1908_ PREFACE It sometimes happens that experiences long since past seem to be repeated, and that knowledge apparently forgotten proves again of service. This is illustrated by the subject of railroad reorganization. In the years between 1893 and 1899 an imposing group of American railroads passed into receivers’ hands. In 1893 alone more than 27,000 miles, with an aggregate capitalization of almost $2,000,000,000, were taken over by the courts, and in the following years the amount was largely increased. Foreclosure sales aggregated 10,446 miles in 1895, 12,355 in 1896, and 40,503 between 1894 and 1898. Among the more important failures were those of the Richmond & West Point Terminal, the Reading, the Erie, the Northern Pacific, the Atchison, and the Baltimore & Ohio;—to say nothing of the Norfolk & Western, the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago, the Ann Arbor, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, the Pecos Valley, and many other smaller lines.