As early as 1875 there was talk of an agreement whereby the Kansas Pacific was to give up its claims for a pro rate on its Pacific business in return for a monopoly of the local business of Colorado, and in connection with the deal was to acquire the Colorado Central Railroad on issue of $10,000,000 Kansas Pacific stock to parties designated by the Union Pacific Company; but this was never carried out. In 1878, when Gould began to be interested in the property, a union by means of stock control seemed feasible. Gould’s first purchases were of bonds, and it was as a bondholder that he entered the pool of 1878; but with the purchase of the holdings of the “St. Louis parties,” he and his friends obtained control of a majority of Kansas Pacific stock. In fact one of the provisions of the pool was that if on the first day of June, 1878, it should be found that Messrs. Gould, Dillon, and Ames, all large stockholders in the Union Pacific, had not a majority interest in said pool, then they should have an option on such an amount of other interest ratably and for cash as on the basis of the schedule should give them such an interest; and though this majority did not necessarily involve a majority of stock, the operations of the pool aided Gould in the acquisition of control. The union between the Union Pacific and the Kansas Pacific thus secured was, however, of the frailest kind; for Mr. Gould at no time had the permanent interest of either road at heart, and looked for his personal profit rather in their struggles than in agreement between them. For this reason, as he bought Kansas Pacific, Gould sold Union Pacific stock, reducing his holdings from about 200,000 to about 27,000 shares.[473] In 1879 the situation of the two roads was thus much the same as before, and the harmony apparent was of the most superficial kind. One change, however, had taken place to the serious disadvantage of the Union Pacific; for the Kansas Pacific, although still badly built and dependent upon its rival for an adjustment of rates sufficiently favorable to let it into the western business, had now interested in it a group of capitalists quite capable of financing an extension to Ogden, and even of securing connections from Kansas City to the East. In 1879, doubtless relying upon the strength of Kansas Pacific’s new backing, Gould proposed to the Union Pacific a consolidation of the Union, Kansas, and Denver Pacific roads, in which the shares of each were to figure equally at par. The terms were absurd by every test of productive capacity which could have been applied. The relative earning power and annual interest per mile of the three roads at this time were given by a government accountant as follows: _Annual Net _Annual Interest Earnings per mile_ per mile_ Union Pacific $5617 $3185 Kansas Pacific 1602 2295 Denver Pacific 1333 1750[474]