Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/395

 of alleged illegitimate profits in connection with the building of the Northern Pacific & Manitoba branch line to Winnipeg. It was assumed that the court would order the suit, and it was regarding this trouble that he wished to confer with Mr. Oakes.

He rejoined his family at Munich on his return from Switzerland on December 17. His sister and her husband resided there, together with several other relatives and a large circle of old personal friends. Mr. Villard had caused the receivers to be informed that he was ready to return and respond at any time to any summons in any suit against him, and in answer had received official information that they had been ordered to bring suit, but thought it proper to call on him first for certain explanations. He concluded to respond to this in person, and was able to notify the receivers early in May, 1895, that he was back and held himself at their disposal. Some correspondence with the receivers followed, but nothing further was done in the case until the following winter, when the court renewed its order to bring suit, which was then commenced. But the suit never passed beyond the first stage—that is, the filing of the complaint and the defendant's answer. The case remained there until after the completion of the reorganization of the Northern Pacific Company and the discharge of the receivers. Mr. Villard received then the fullest possible vindication by a dismissal of the suit without his solicitation, and a certification from the principal conductors of the reorganization, E. D. Adams, Francis Lynde Stetson and C. H. Coster, that no evidence whatever had been found to sustain the charges against him. This is the place in which to mention also that it was proved, through a most searching investigation of the Northern Pacific accounts made by order of the court, that not a dollar of the corporate funds had ever been improperly used.

When Mr. Villard announced his settled determination before his departure for Europe in 1893 to withdraw from