Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/405



up the wreckage of the fictitious corporation, and burying as best he could the scandals which disgraced the Hves and ruined the poHtical fortunes of more men in Oregon than all other events in the history of the state, Holladay sold in Germany ten and a half million dollars of bonds upon the land grant and the road to be constructed. Applied at the rate of $30,000 per mile of road, these bonds were estimated to build three hundred and fifty miles, or practi- cally to the California line. But by Holladay's recklessness, if not dishonest man- agement, not more than fifty-seven cents on the dollar of the bonds ever went into the construction of the road ; so that by the time the track had reache'd Roseburg from Portland the proceeds of the bonds were exhausted, and Rose- burg remained the southern terminus of the road for ten years. Then a reor- ganization took place, the holders of the bonds surrendering their securities for preferred stock, and advancing more money on a new mortgage to extend the road to Ashland in Jackson County. Here the track stood still for seven years, and another reorganization took place ; the old bondholders refunding their second issue of bonds in new bonds bearing a still lower rate of interest, and the Southern Pacific Company advancing the capital to finally connect Oregon and California with the present existing road, in the year 1887; making nineteen years from the time construction work commenced until the road reached the California line. Holladay, proving wholly incapable of managing the prop- erty, was forced out of its control by the bondholders in 1876, and Mr. Henry Villard put in control ; and under Villard, as immediate and responsible manager of the property, a young man from Germany (Richard Koehler) of whom we shall have more to say further along.

Of the contest for possession of the land grant and the character of the men who combined to rob the rightful owners of it, Scot's History of Portland, p. 287, says:

"It was a memorable conflict, that conducted by the first rival railroad com- panies of Oregon ; with matter in it for a novelist. It would be rash to inti- mate that Elliott with all his mythical capitalists was an agent of Holladay all the time, the general opinion being that he was at first only acting for him- self, or that the East Side Company knew the extent of his romances, which they used so well to their advantage. It would on the other hand be difficult to believe that Holladay's or the original East Side Company were actually imposed upon by representations as to a firm like J. Cook & Co., of immense wealth and standing, when any business or banking gazateer would inform them as to the existence or non-existence of such a firm; particularly as Mr. Gaston was con- stantly asserting in public that this company was all a pretense."

Of Ben Holladay. the same work says, p. 283 : "He was a man whose sel- fishness dominated all else, and his practical incentive was to use the power of wealth to control a state. He showed no love for Oregon, or for the people of Oregon, but no other field was so inviting, or so well within his means. If his aims had been to build a railroad, he might have done it with less trouble and expense, and for far greater returns. If his idea was to make himself the auto- crat of the state, to own legislature and United States senators and perhaps extend his operations over adjoining territories and control transcontinental lines, he never followed it with consistency. Upon examination we appre- hend he would be found a man of great intentions, but of unstable will, of deep schemes but feeble convictions, of large aims, but incapable of sustained effort or sacrifice, and subject to violent passion and prejudice. As a working scheme of morality he let nothing stand in the way of his aims recognizing no rights of anybody, but the shortest way to his object. He had one, and but one, means of attaining his end and that was the use of his money. To buy an at- torney, judge, a city, a legislator, a senator, public opinion, was all one to him. He made no appeals to the people, neither addressing them on the side of self interest or generosity. The public knew nothing of him except that he was a