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3.0 out of 5 stars
A great man deserves a better biography., September 25, 2011
E.H. Harriman is one of the most important figures in North American railroad history. Yet this book is a frustrating, and ultimately unsatisying read.
Why?
It might have been entitled "As far as I am concerned, Harriman can do no wrong". There is great irony in Klein's disclaimer of the previous captive biography by Kennan (no, no that George Kennan, an earlier one).
Consider at page 76, or page 170, where Klein, in discussing what we apparently would nowadays call price fixing, excuses it as "an attempt to impose stability" by, in effect, wise, well meaning, far-sighted men of business. Klein writes of Harriman's view of one railroad manager (Stilwell) who refused to engage in price fixing (i.e., he opposed "stability", and kept cutting rates to attract business) as "a menace". Or, for example, page 204, the first full paragraph from lines 9 - 11, and lines 12 - 14 in the next paragraph:
"Reluctantly the federal government entered the fray in ways that threatened to reverse its historic relationship with the private sector.
The uncertainties spawned by these clashes drove businessmen to conclude that competition was fine in theory but ruinous in practice. It bred waste, inefficiency, and instability ... To survive, much less prosper, managers had to curb competition in their own industry, however much they extolled its virtues in other fields ..."
So price fixing in the railroad business must be good for the economy then. Is that right Mr. Klein?
This theme is repeated over, and over, and over throughout the book. Well, gosh, Mr. Klein, so the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Sherman Act, and the early anti-trust efforts were all entirely misguided efforts to deal with a non-problem, is that right?
On page 97 Mr. Klein finds it a laudable tonic that Harriman encouraged domestic employees on his estate, Arden, to go to church - by implicitly threatening to dismiss them if they did not. Thus did Harriman set a moral example for others to follow.
On page 114 Mr. Klein applauds the Union Pacific foreclosure that made the UP "free of the federal government for the first time." There is no explanation of the background of this statement, why the foreclosure took place, or why the government had been involved in the first place, or how Harriman bought the property for what amounted to a relatively few cents on the dollar. Perhaps a little light could have been shed on the history of corruption, the bribery of politicians, the unbelievably favourable system of land grants, the insider construction contracts, and the machinations of, e.g., Huntington and Stanford, the efforts of Charles Francis Adams to turn it around, the intervention of Gould?
On page 188 we see a lovely passage of paternalism and condescension toward BC native peoples that Klein passes over without further comment.
On page 215 Mr. Klein tells us that "Labor too showed a disturbing tendency to consolidate into larger units, the better to fight the corporate giants facing it."
And then this gem: "Against this backdrop Harriman went his way, determined to make his contribution to progress by imposing order on the largest and most unruly industry in America."
The coverage of Harriman's botched attempt to take over the Northern Pacific, and the stock market panic it precipitated does not really give the reader an adequate appreciation of the seriousness of the matter either in terms of business consequences or of securities regulation.
And on, and on, and on.
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Harriman was a very important figure in railroad history. His achievements, and his legacy, were both huge. But the wart-less glossing-over in this book is well beyond irritating. Facts are needed to give depth and context. Some of us like our facts without varnish, a nail file, or a comb. It is like being locked in a phone booth, without being able to step back and get an appropriate perspective. If you have knowledge of the surrounding events, of the huge anti-trust issues and battles of the times; of the then very high death and injury toll among railroad workers, e.g., brakemen; of labor practices that would now bring criminal prosecution or civil liability, or both; of securities practices that, likewise, would probably now bring criminal prosecution, to read this book and see these things either explicitly or implicitly excused, or sanitized, or swept under the carpet, or omitted, ... after a while it becomes laughable. You begin to ask yourself "how many different kinds of white-wash are there?"
A lot more hard-edged analysis with a critical eye and a lot less sepia would have been more worthy of the man being portrayed. A great man deserves a great biography. This isn't it.
This book could have been a far better book than it is.
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