Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-10-25
GOULD AND WILLARD.
The Alleged Alliance Between the
Two Railroad Managers.
lChicago Tribune.l

lChicago Tribune.
Private and press dispatches have been
rife the last few days with the intimations
ola makeup" between Gould and Viii
lard. 1t was said that Gould, who had
been the inspiring genius of the fearful at
| tack on the Willard securities, had gained
his point and obtained recognition from
| Willard which carried with it recognition
OF the Gould interest in the directory of
the Northern Pacific. All this was bad
news to those who wanted to believe that
an honest man could survive in the stock
market and the American railroad world.
They had come to believe that all that
Gould was in the way Of rascality and
trust-wrecking Willard was not. 1t would
have been the severest possible kind
of shock to them and to the community
generally if the reported coalition between
the financial spirits of light and darkness
had really come true. So tar there is no
evidence whatever that the stories of an
alliance are anything but one of the char
acteristic inventions of one of the Mephis-
topheles of Wall street to magnify his
power. The reelection of Mr.. Willard and
his board, and the absence of any recogni-
tion of the Gould element are pretty con-
elusive on this point. The attack on Mr.
Willard in the stock markets has been, on
the whole, the most formidable thing of
the kind that has ever been done in Wall
street, where similar plots of more or less
magnitude are constantly being contrived
and executed The loss in dollars and
cents is prodigious But the assailants
have not been successful. They have not
crippled their enemy. They have not
even forced him from his place. Mr. Viii
lard, it now turns out, toresaw the tactics
of his foe, and placed himself before he
left New York in an impregnable position.
The motives of this carefully planned,
but on the whole unsuccessful campaign
against Mr.. Willard are, like its persons,
various. Gould is man who it is well
known, never allows anyone who foils his
schemes to 60 unpunished, no matter how
long the trap has to be kept open. The
fact that the onslaught on the Willard
stocks happened simultaneously with the
railroad conference at San Francisco to set
tie on what terms the Pacific coast business
should be pooled, indicates beyond perad-
venture that the Central Pacific people
had a hand in forging the weapons against
the head of the Northern Pacific. And it
may be easily believed that this terrific
Wall street charge had it's influence in
forcing the Northern Pacific into the Pa
ciic Coast pool. 1t has been surmised that
the Vanderbilts, who own already a line
from tide-water on the Atlantic
to st. Paul and Omaha, and
have large interest in the Union Pacific
may have been concerned in this financial
battle, in the hopes of thereby completing
their transcontinental route, but nothing is
positively known to verify this plausible
suspicion. The first use we hope to see
Mr. Willard make of his power, as soon as
the troublesome questions of the funding
of the floating debt and the completion Of
the tunnels are out Of the way, TO break
loose from the Pacific coast pool, which he
never ought to have gone into. The trade
of California is a great prize, of which he
should get share for his road He can
haul freight cheaper than the other roads,
and the extra time consumed by the water
haul from Portland to San Francisco is a
matter of no consequence whatever on most
of the traffic between the East and the
West. What the Northern Pacific needs
more than anything else is the kind of ad-
vertising lively railroad war would give
it, and the increase of immigration that
would come with cheap fares