Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/363

 before, formed the opinion that there was a great lack of foresight and too much of a happy-go-lucky disposition among most Wall Street men, and this impression was now fully confirmed. His predictions that a general crash was bound to come in the wake of that law were simply sneered at. The head of one of the greatest houses even expressed the opinion that a little more currency would do no harm, but would on the contrary help the bankers to relieve themselves of the stocks and bonds they had been obliged to carry for want of a good market.

The detachment of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company from the Oregon & Transcontinental Company, and the financial independence secured to the Northern Pacific by the creation of the consolidated mortgage, had rendered unnecessary the pursuit of one of the two principal purposes for which the Oregon & Transcontinental Company was organized, viz., to extend financial aid to the companies controlled by it. It was therefore decided, on Mr. Villard's recommendation, to absorb it by making a new company, after paying off the outstanding Oregon & Transcontinental bonds issued against Northern Pacific branches. The absorption was effected in a remarkably quick time by the exchange of share for share of Oregon & Transcontinental stock for North American Company stock in the early summer of 1890.

In the spring of 1890, a great domestic grief came upon Mr. Villard's family. The youngest son, a handsome, gifted lad of seven, passed through a long illness, and, after apparent convalescence, had a relapse and died. The whole family felt the affliction deeply. His friends urged Mr. Villard to seek diversion by a long stay abroad, and he decided to sail for Europe with his family early in July. After travelling some weeks in Ireland, England, and France, they went to St. Blasien in the Black Forest, and subsequently to Freiburg in southern Baden.

Suddenly, cable news of a most alarming character from America plunged Mr. Villard into the gravest anxiety. He