Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/354

 days—a very sad sight. On reaching Portland, he learned that an injunction would be applied for to prevent the holding of the Oregon Railway & Navigation election. This led to negotiations which culminated shortly in the sale of all the holdings of Oregon Railway & Navigation stock of the Oregon & Transcontinental Company to the Union Pacific, at a satisfactory price. Mr. Villard came to the conclusion that this solution was the best one for his side, as he was advised by counsel that the lease of the Oregon Railway & Navigation system could not be broken, and as he knew, further, that the hostile branch lines north of the Snake River were completed and would have to be recognized as existing factors. In other words, the Oregon Railway & Navigation stock no longer embodied the power to protect the Northern Pacific, and, therefore, its principal value to the Oregon & Transcontinental Company was lost. From that time on, Mr. Villard never had anything to do with the management of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, whose creator he had been.

After the annual Northern Pacific election in September, 1889, Mr. Villard held for a month the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, and then, yielding once more to the importunities of his friends, consented to take the chairmanship of the board, a new office especially created in order to facilitate the more efficient supervision of the general affairs of the company other than the actual operation of the system, of which the president and the heads of departments had charge. The growth of the earning power of the road had been very satisfactory during the three years from 1886 to 1889, the earnings rising from $12,789,448.10 to $19,707,467.95 gross, and from $5,884,831.30 to $7,843,926.48 net, while the mileage had increased only from 2876 to 3419. With this favorable showing and the restoration of the company's credit by the financial relief Mr. Villard had obtained for it, the new chairman looked upon his task of providing for coming needs as a not very difficult one. According to the reports of the president