Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/300

 before the end of April, 1876. He arrived at Portland two weeks later, and was at once elected president of the Oregon & California and Oregon Steamship companies, and assumed charge of them and, indirectly, of the Oregon Central. He remained several months in Oregon, making himself thoroughly acquainted with the business of the companies, and gaining the confidence of the community at Portland and of the public of the State at large by a number of reforms in the management of the railroads, and especially by proclaiming his determination that they should no longer be used, as they had been under the Holladay régime, as instruments for political party purposes. He devoted all his spare time to seeing as much as possible both of the western and eastern parts of the State, and came away confirmed in his conviction of the great future of Oregon, and inspired by the fine opportunities his new position seemed to open to him.

Mr. Villard intended to settle in Portland with his family in the fall of the same year, but was detained at the East by unexpected complications in the affairs of the Kansas Pacific Company. Owing to the utter failure of the crops in Kansas for several successive years, there had been a further decline, instead of an improvement, in that railroad's earnings, so that the company was unable to comply with the terms of the funding agreement. With the consent of the Frankfort committee of bondholders, it was decided to place the property under a receivership. As the representative in America of the bondholders, Mr. Villard was proposed as one of the two receivers to be appointed. He was reluctant to accept in view of his newly assumed responsibilities in Oregon, but, as it was mainly through his influence that the temporary funding of interest had been conceded in Germany, he could not well decline, and, accordingly, his appointment as receiver was made by the United States District Court for eastern Kansas on November 3, 1876. One of his first duties was an inspection of the main line and branches in company with