Harriman died in September of 1909, and with his death the wizard touch was clearly gone. What would have been the later history of the Union Pacific had he lived can be only conjectured. The new management, with Judge Robert S. Lovett at its head, continued the broad and efficient operation which had characterized Mr. Harriman's regime, but it soon abandoned the policy of further growth and expansion. This alteration in policy, however, was perhaps more the result of changing conditions than of relinquishment of Harriman's aims. Many new laws for the regulation of the railways had been passed, and in 1906 the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission were greatly augmented. A period of reform had now begun, and after 1909 a wave of "progressivism" overspread the country. New interpretations were given to the Sherman Act, and suits were soon under way against all the railroads and industrial combinations which appeared to be infringing that statute. The great Standard Oil and Tobacco trusts were dissolved in this period, and a suit which was brought to divorce the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific Company was finally decided against the Union Pacific, with the result that the two big properties were separated. The Union Pacific turned a large amount of its Southern Pacific stock holdings over to the Pennsylvania Railroad, in exchange for which it received from the Pennsylvania the remainder of the Baltimore and Ohio stock which the Pennsylvania interests had retained after the sale to the Union Pacific in 1906. Immediately after this, the Union Pacific management, seeing no particular advantage in retaining an interest in the Baltimore and Ohio, gave the shares to its own stockholders in a special dividend. Thus, since Harriman's death, the Union Pacific Railroad has once more returned to very much its original condition prior to its acquisition of the Southern Pacific. It still controls the Illinois Central and the Chicago and Alton and has investment interests in a large number of other railroads. It is still the premier system of the West and promises to remain so indefinitely; but the bold Harriman touch is gone and will never return. CHAPTER XII. THE AMERICAN RAILROAD PROBLEM