The daily enterprise. [volume] (Livingston, Mont.) 1883-1884, 1884-09-18
Villard's Vindication.

hOHIy IIIdIus cA'pIcSlucuO VI Uue
Northern Pacific railroad. has publish.
ed statement of his work in connec.
tion with that company. It Is in the
the nature of a vlndicatiOn of
his policy which has been So
so sharply criticised and which has
even led to personal abuse heaped upon
himself. The statement is necessarily
long but is very concise and free of un.
necessary words. It presents to the
reader clear comprehension of the
herculean work which he accomplish
ed in the two years of his
presidency-a work Of such magni-
tude as has seldom devolved upon any
man and has never been so successful.
ly carried through. T. involved the
building of nearly 1000 miles of rail-
road IN Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota,
Montana, Idaho. Washington and Or
egOn-8OO miles Of it main line in the
mountainous centre of the continent;
it involved the building of bridges
over great rivers. the tunneling Of
mountain ranges, the provision OF ter
minal facilities--all carried on stimuli
taneously; it involved the employ
ment of an army of nearly 10000
men scattered from the great lakes to
the Pacific ocean; it involved the
watching of all this great work and
the guarding OF the company's inter.
ests in every directions; greater than
all it involved the provision of $685.
100000 of capital during two years
when the present period of depression
was already approaching, and when
enemies of the road were assailing it
in and out of congress. AL this he
accomplished between September 1881
and August 1883. He details how, in
order to protect the Northern Pacific
he drew into close alliance with 1t the
Oregon Railway & Navigation com.
pany, the Oregon improvement COM
pany, the Oregon & California COM
pany; how he organized the Oregon &
Transcontinental company to hold all
those different companies together and
to raise money to carry on the great
work of construction; how he organ
lied the st. Paul & Northern Pacific
company to build a line independent
of any other road from Sauk Rapids
into st. Paul; how, that the Northern
Pacific might have an independent con-
necti0n with Milwaukee and Chicago,
he began work in Minnesota and Wis
consln to that end, through thelmedium
of the Wisconsin Central; how to de
velop the company's land grant and
feed the main line, he began the con
struction of a carefully selected sys-
tenn of branches; how he fought the
st. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba road
to satisfactory peace; how he organ
lied the Oregon Terminal company in
order to- raise money to provide ter.
minal facilities on the Pacific coast;
how. in order to obtain know
ledge of the true value of the
company's lard grant and of the
possibilities of the Northern Pacific
country, he organized the Northern
Transcontental Survey; and he carried
on very extensive repairs on the older
portion of the road. All this he did
in those two years. He then explains
that when he took the presidency. en-
gineer Anderson had presented an es.
innate that the cost of completing and
equipping the main line of the road
would be very little above $24.OO0.-
600. Upon this estimate he based his
calculations, but in reality the work
cost nearly $45. 100000. The hostility
of congress to the road shown in 1881
80, resulted in that for a whole year the
president refused to appoint commits
sioners to accept completed portions
of the road, and prevented the sale of
second mortgage bonds, thus delay
ing the company in realizing $15, ,000.-
600 of its resources. During two
months before the sale of these bonds
the bankers of the company refused
to advance one dollar to its assistance.
The company was brought to the
verge Of bankruptcy and was saved
only by Willard ; personal advances to
the amount Of over three millions Of