This plan, however, met with too much opposition and was abandoned. During the following year a new plan, backed by both the American and the German interests, secured the strong cooperation and endorsement of J. P. Morgan and Company. This was the first instance of Morgan's entry into railroad reorganization in the West. During the previous few years he had been increasing his reputation as a reorganizer of Eastern railroad properties, and by this time he had successfully organized or was rehabilitating the Erie, the Reading, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Southern, and the Hocking Valley systems. But he had kept clear of the far Western field and had definitely refused to reorganize the Union Pacific on the ground that its territory was too sparsely settled and that there was little hope for its future, especially as its partial control by the United States Government made any reorganization extremely difficult. The new plan for the Northern Pacific was carried out with no regard to the Hill interests: the old stockholders were heavily assessed; all bondholders were forced to make sacrifices; the Wisconsin Central lines were entirely eliminated and separately reorganized; and the Oregon lines were dissociated from the Northern Pacific and afterwards returned to the control of the new Union Pacific. While the new Northern Pacific as reorganized in 1898 came directly under Morgan's control and was immediately classed as a Morgan property, it did not remain exclusively such for very long. In the promotion and development of the Great Northern system, Hill had hitherto maintained an independent position so far as banking alliances were concerned, but he now began to develop closer relations with the Morgans and became heavily interested in the First National Bank of New York, an institution which for many years had been more or less directly identified with the Morgan interests. On more than one occasion thereafter the banking firm of J. P. Morgan and Company acted as financial agent for the Great Northern. Soon after the reorganization of the Northern Pacific, it became known that Hill had acquired an important interest in the property, and as time went on this interest was substantially increased. Within a year or two the Northern Pacific began to be classed as one of the Hill lines. With a substantial Hill representation on the board of directors and a managerial policy which was clearly inspired by Hill, the company now entered upon a new stage in its career.