Page:The Pacific Monthly volume 17.djvu/748

 The West Siders relied largely on local aid. While the subscriptions made them were all good, collections were slow and ready cash woefully scarce.

The East Siders were in fully as great straits. Elliot had gone East as their agent and had succeeded in placing a limited amount of their bonds, and had also purchased considerable construction material. including two locomotives, when information was widely disseminated by circulars, issued by Gaston, recounting "the unfair rivalry," including the duplication of names, with the result that Elliot found the bottom had dropped out of his market. He. how- ever, gol his material on the ground, but ins two locomotives he was obliged, or rather, let us say. he found it expedient to sell to the ( Vntral Pacific.

These financial difficulties did not, how- ever, deter them in their aggressive warfare on each other. The West Siders appealed to the courts to declare their rivals illegally con- stituted and to enjoin them from using the name Oregon Central Railroad Company, which they claimed was their property through their having been duly incorporated before the East Siders, and further to al- low them damages for the trouble and loss caused by the illegal use of their corporate title. The state courts, to which application had been made, refused to give a definite decision on the first 1 wo of their allegations, and holding on the third that no damages had been proven. Failing in this, the West Siders induced a landowner, through whose property the Fast Siders had located their line, to refuse them a right of way, and when the attempt was made to secure it through condemnation proceedings to resist, setting- up the plea in court that the Fast Siders, not being a lawfully constituted corporation, hail no standing in court and therefore could not legally condemn land. Rather than meet this issue, the East Siders relocated their line, going around the property in dis- pute, thus foiling the plans of the Wesl Siders.

The City of Portland as well as a pre- ponderance of settlements were located on the Wesl Side. The Gaston party had, to al! appearances, the land grant and the aid from the slate, and it seemed as though it

was only a question of tiring out the East Siders. when they would he compelled to

give up the fight, especially as the West Siders had public sympathy to a large and growing extent.

Elliot, the moving spirit of the Fast Sid- ers, was not a man to give up. His affilia- tions wvw originally with the parties who were building the California (portion of the line, and in this, the extremity of his com- pany, he turned to them for assistance, which was duly forthcoming.

Through the efforts of these parties a new factor was introduced -one man whose prestige and fighting qualities were to com- pletely reverse the situation.

In August, 1868, Ben Holladay put in an appearance in Portland. Up to this time he had been widely known as the proprietor of the overland stage from the Missouri to the Pacific, and which he had hut recently disposed of at a very large figure. He also was largely interested in steamship lines out of San Francisco — both north and south- ami rumor gave him credit of being the pos- sessor of millions.

Soon after his arrival in Oregon it was announced that he had purchased a control- ing interest in the Fast Side Company, and that consequently it had been raised from the verge of bankruptcy to where it had the backing of all of Holladay's millions. Hol- laday made no secret id' his intention to down the "West Side Company, to secure the subsidies which they so confidently claimed, and of rushing the Fast Side Com- pany through to the Califoronia line and a connection with the California and Oregon Railroad, which his friends were building north to meet him.

His lirst move was to rid himself of his troublesome rival. To do this he availed himself of a serious oversight mi their part. When the incorporators of the lirst Oregon Central Railroad Company organized, the

requisite papers were presented to the Seciv taiy of State. October 6, 1866, for filing in his office, as was necessary under the law to render their incorporation valid. Conse quently Gaston presented them on the date named, had the Secretary endorse them and then asked the privilege of withdrawing them for the purpose id' having additional signers whom he was desirous of having ap- pear among the list of incorporators, 'flu 1 action of the Legislature, naming his com pany as the one designated by it to receive