Thus with one bound Harriman had leaped to the forefront in American railroad finance and by a bold act which was characteristic of the man. For Edward H. Harriman was not only a hardheaded, practical business builder who like Morgan thought in big figures, but he was also a bold plunger, which Morgan was not. Possessing a vivid imagination, he not only saw far into the future but he also planned far into that same future. Morgan was also a man of vision, but his vision did not carry him far beyond the present. The things Morgan saw best were those immediately before him, while the things that Harriman saw best were at a distance. Morgan's big plans of procedure were based on what he saw in a business way in the near future; he reorganized his railroads with the idea of making them pay their way as soon as possible and of showing a good return on the capital invested. He thought little of what might be the outcome a decade or two hence or of what combinations might later be worked on the chessboard as a result of his immediate moves. Morgan's mind was not philosophical; it was intensely practical. While Morgan declined the proffered control of the Union Pacific on the theory that it was only a "streak of rust" running through a sparsely settled country and across an arid desert, Harriman dreamed of the great undeveloped West filling up with people during the following generation, of the empty plains being everywhere put under cultivation, and of the arid desert responding to the effects of irrigation on a large and comprehensive scale. He foresaw the wonderful future of the Pacific States--the opening up of natural resources in the mountains, the steady stream of men and women who would ultimately emigrate to this vast section from the East and from foreign lands and who would build up towns and great cities. At the same time, with that practical mind of his, Harriman calculated that the Union Pacific Railroad--situated in the heart of this huge area, having the most direct and shortest line to the Pacific, and with all traffic from the East converging over half a dozen feeder lines to Omaha and Kansas City--would haul enormous amounts of tonnage just as soon as the Western country revived from the depression under which it had been struggling for half a dozen years. When Harriman took hold of the Union Pacific he had already determined to absorb the Oregon lines, with their tributaries running up into the Puget Sound country and to the Butte mining district; to get hold of the Southern Pacific properties at the earliest possible moment; and to link the Illinois Central in some way to the Union Pacific so that the latter would have its own independent outlets to Chicago and St. Louis. All these plans he ultimately accomplished, as well as many others, some of which his farseeing imagination may have conceived then.