Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/353

 of the opposition being signed by Sidney Dillon, Elijah Smith, John H. Hall, and Samuel Thomas.

Wall Street was divided into two camps, and the contest between them absorbed its attention for the time. Both sides strengthened themselves by purchases of Oregon & Transcontinental stock in the open market. As is usually the case, the crowd of speculators also became eager buyers, and the result of the scramble was the rise of the shares, with enormous transactions, from below 30 to 64, and a regular "corner," which came very near producing a crisis. The excitement grew from day to day with the approach of the closing of the books. It was the bitterest fight Mr. Villard ever had to engage in, and he had not only constantly to watch the market, but to conduct a protracted controversy in the press. A great deal of slander and vituperation was aimed at him, and he had also to meet injunction proceedings begun by the other side. It was the severest strain ever put upon him. He was victorious, and elected his ticket by an absolute majority of the stock; but the triumphant outcome was no compensation to him for the unenviable notoriety which the battle had once more given him. It was but proof to him how well founded his fears had been of the disagreeable consequences to himself personally of his return to power, and he could not help upbraiding himself, even after the struggle was over, for not having followed his own better judgment and remained a private business man.

Mr. Villard proceeded to Portland, accompanied by counsel, in order to be personally present at the annual stockholders meetings of the Oregon & Transcontinental and Oregon Railway & Navigation Companies; travelling over the Canadian Pacific. On reaching Seattle, than which no community on the Pacific Northwest was more friendly to him, he found that the whole business part of the city had been reduced to ashes the day before. The great conflagration had destroyed all supplies of food, so that the whole population had to be fed from public tables for