Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/345

 borrower from the Oregon & Transcontinental Company. Mr. Villard was called on for help on August 27, 1887, by Elijah Smith, president of the Oregon & Transcontinental and of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Companies, and a representative of the imperilled firm. After explaining the threatening situation, they asked him for immediate assistance to the extent of not less than $5,000,000, for which they offered the Oregon Railway & Navigation bonds not taken by Chase & Higginson at 94, and twenty thousand shares of Oregon Railway & Navigation stock at 85 less 4¼ commission. They appealed strongly to his loyalty to save the two companies created by himself, and coupled with their terms an offer not only to turn over to him the management of both the Oregon & Transcontinental and Oregon Railway & Navigation Companies, but to place in his hands, unconditionally, sufficient proxies for the next Northern Pacific election of directors to put it in his power to elect to the board of that company any one he liked.

What a revolution of the wheel of fortune! But his first duty was to his foreign clients, and, after obtaining the best possible conditions, he cabled them the details of the proposed transaction, laying particular stress on the necessity of an immediate decision which meant nothing less than the cable transfer of the full amount of $5,000,000, He did not himself believe that this sudden large call would be responded to, but, to his great surprise, his friends accepted, and the entire sum was at his disposal in New York within thirty-six hours. So sudden a transaction had never before taken place in the financial dealings between Europe and the United States. Its direct effect in Wall Street was to completely upset the exchange market. The press proclaimed the event with sensational comments,