The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-12-22
THE DAILY ARGUS.
saturday December 2s, 1888.
ABOUT WILLARD.
"Glth" Tells How He Managed His
Northern Pacific Scheme.
s.aIsinG Eight Millions OF Dollars by
secret Circular Three Core
spOndents and Joe Medill--
The Last Long Line.

New YoRF, Dec. 22-aGath" says: The
retirement Of Willard from all the railroad
properties but one is the end of another epic
in construction
Mr.. Willard did not obtain the Northern
Pacific railroad by open and direct ap-
proaches, but by an attack i'll the
rear. He worked his way ont to
the Pacific coast, and there formed
Il steam navigation and transportation com
pauv, and when this turned out well. he sud
denly issued a sort of blind or secret circular
to persons of wealth at time when our rail
read concerns had just begun to awaken from
the disaster Of 1878, and he said: II have an
operation for which require IS, 900, 900; and if
Won would like to become one of the persons
in it You will send your check for the pro
portion you wish to take" In that way he
raised, out of market anxious for develop
ment and higher rates Of interest a sum that
almost seems small at present, because after
ward so much larger sums were raised by
different banking houses for other railroad
objects.
The Northern Pacific stock was then quite
low in the market Its chief use for several
years had been to acquire land on the line of
luz Itdu, tut lduu III lildllN CbStS LtlTit-
ing out well fer wheat With
%S,0O000D of ready money Mr. Willard
captured an enormous amount of this
steel, and revolutoniz9d the directory,
putting the Billings element out at once and
the Cooke element at the other end, and con
shutting himself and followers the Northern
Pacific Railroad company, which he at once
tucked on to the Oregon concern, thereby
showing how, in finance as in credit, the tail
can was the dog.
This man tool; up the railroad not far west
Of Bsmarcll-say, 800 miles-and added
nearly 3 90 miles to it by construction,
lease and purchase. We may suppose that
he has built at least 5000 miles
Of raiIll III the last five years, at
$4,000 mila This represents $4,000 COO
Mr.. Willard seems to have avoided every ac-
ton OF Jay Cooke and vet to have como oUt
at nearly The same place. Ii may be that he IS
= rich man personally l asked this question
n New York AMI my informant said he
wa, worth Sl000l 0Ol He himself said in
an Interview the day after he resigned, that
ne voted on G4,0dO, coo of the stoci; directly
ana by proxies at the last annual election.
cyettaci+, though he has built more rail-
rnai tlau JAY Cooke, he do=s not seem to
have made as many friends, nor 10 have
avoided the same class of errors
During the rebellion there were among Il
number Of newspaper correspondents, three
ut Washington CITY One was Samuel
W;lko,on, connected with The New York
Tribune: another vas Horace White, con-
uartel with The Chicago Tribune; the third
was Henry Willard, who wrote for both the
New OIL; and Chicago Tributes, as cor
respondent on the battlefield.
think that al these men, and a good
many others, made their pecuniary stake
by timely knowledge of the special tax
put on whisky. l see no reason why they
should not have taken advantage of
that change. Not to have done so
would have put them in the category
of men like the earl of Clarendon, who when
Charles II. offered him handsome grant of
land or Office replied that he could not take
it lest his motives might be misconstrued.
The king remarked: "The Old fool. He would
rather be pitied than envied" Joe Medin
used to say to me that White, Willard q Co
had got their money in whisky crookedly. l
always considered them more honest than he
was and it was great mistake that he did
not make some money in that mercantile way
originally and get rid of his cheap-ninded
ness.
never made Wizards acquaintance but
like to see him get along; and have no
doubt that he has filled a useful place in this
country by bringing to bear on this railroad
the credit, and, may add, the character, to
open it to traffic. His name can hardly fail
to go into the records of the continent as one
of the great path-makers. That is a mean
element in the world which stan DIS back and
criticises all the minutia of a mans methods
who is bound for great object.
Willard, no doubt, lentthe money to buy The
Evening Post, in which Gen Schurz was put
as editor. This was a well-intended gift
which l had overlooked in previous state
ment The trouble with Carl Schurz is that
he defines honesty to mean merely pecuniary
correctness
He insisted that his kind of honesty, mucl
Of which was financial stupidity, should b,
the measure of the entire world, and es2eciall,
of those mep who compete with Gen. Schur
for the public appreciation. He made no con
cesSions to men who considered life NOR
generously
The age of railroad building over EXTENSIVE
surfaces in this country has probably come t.
an end. 1t is astonishing, when we look bacl
at it, to see how thoroughly the visions hav
been realized of those dreamers who proiecte
three or four railroads to the Pacific re
member writing, as if it were yesterday, til
driving of a golden spike at the junction O
the Union and Central Pacific railroads, an
now, behold, we have Southern Pacific
Texas Pacific, the Atchison &c Santa Fe, til
Atlantic & Pacific, the Burlington & Pacifi
and the Northern Pacific railroads.&c. nearl
completed!
Men must have failed so carry out thes
great works A few men have inordinatel
succeeded-lilSe Stanford, Huntington and IL
Cruckers. But look at the innumerable me
who have fallen by the way-like DR. Duran
and Gen. Fremont and Thomas A. Scot
and Jay Cooke, and Gregory Smith, an
many others! Mr.. Willard has given indu
trious years to the contamination of tn
great work, and won the title to be one of II
great adopted Americans of the century.