Talk:James J. Hill

Untitled

"Many people have accused James J. Hill of being a bloodthirsty

businessman. Such would be true. However, it is unfair to condemn

him entirely."

I wonder how well this conforms to the NPOV? I don't know enough about Hill to say. Maybe the accusation should be made specific enough that readers can judge according to their own philosophies? I suspect that maybe this is parallel to "Many people think Einstein was a brilliant physicist, but it would be unfair to condemn him entirely, since once in 1952 he was kind to a child ... ", etc. -- Mike Hardy

It's not NPOV. Wikipedia is not in the business of saying what is fair, and "bloodthirsty businessman" is a subjective moral judgment. Compared to Bill Gates &co. he may well have been liberal-minded and fair.

And now I've deleted it. If someone wants to say James J. Hill murdered his business competitors or defrauded his employees, or to make some accusation that is specific in its content, that could be consistent with NPOV, but "bloodthirsty" lacks specificity and gives us a verdict without the facts of the case.

The wording at several points in the article should be changed to be more appropriate to an encyclopedia bio. I'll do my best to fix it up myself (as it was I who put the cleanup tag on the article.) Paul 05:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

what about references in popular culture

Like he is referenced in the Great Gatsby here "If he’d of lived, he’d of been a great man. A man like James J. Hill. He’d of helped build up the country.” 107 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.245.14 (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian Pacific Railway

What about Hill's involvment with the Canadian Pacific Railway? Fawcett5 14:09, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Article style

Can someone please work on this article's style, including re-writing the phrases "His first goal? To expand and upgrade still more." and "To recap briefly". Thanks. --Jason McHuff 19:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

This paragraph --

An enthusiatic conservationist, Hill was invited by President Theodore Roosevelt invited governor's conference on conservation of natural resources, and later appointed to a lands commission.

is suffering from a typo. Since I don't know this bit of history and both a President and a governor is mentioned, I hope that someone who knows what this means can fix it. Hue White 18:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

POV Violations

This article needs to be cleaned up for various glaring biases.

Second that. Highly biased and non-neutral.

Monopoly extent?

The frequent references to Hill's 'monopolies' don't specify their geographic extent. Did they extend to England, San Fransisco, or was he just the only supplier in a particular town? -The Gomm 23:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Good article, but why hyperlink words like "ton" and "percent?"

This sounds like a cleanup project for someone. Landroo 20:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Links problem

the links at the end of the Extrenal link list could be considered as spam! Compwhizii 18:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

well, here's a good one that should be added: http://books.google.com/books?id=AHEAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=toc&client=firefox-a#PRA5-PA618,M2 User:scewing —Preceding undated comment added 18:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC).

Sources

["James Jerome Hill"] gets 117 hits on google scholar, 697 on google books of which 1 is full-view and 256 are limited preview, 102 from all-time in Google News, 5,860 in google search.
["Empire Builder"] gets 8420 hits on google news - including

“ J. J. HILL'S ESTATE PUT AT $100,000,000; Empire Builder's Son Files an Inventory Showing Great Holdings of Securities. BANK STOCKS $24,812,000 Financier Had More Than $7,000,000 in Railroad Stocks and $4,449,000 in Cash.

October 6, 1916, Friday Page 1, 499 words ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 5. -- The property left by James J. Hill, the railroad builder, subject to probate in Minnesota courts, is valued at more than $52,000,000 by his son, Louis W. Hill, in an inventory furnished to appraisers of the estate today. The inventory does not include several parcels of real estate in the Northwest, or Mr. Hill's properties in other States.

”

from the New York Times..--Keerllston 16:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Discovery of the Marias Pass

"The key to the Great Northern line was Hill's use of the previously unmapped Marias Pass first discovered by Santiago Jameson. The pass had been discovered by John Frank Stevens..."

Either it was discovered by Santiago Jameson or by John Frank Stevens... which? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel Earwicker (talk • contribs) 18:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)