The Portland daily press., 1885-10-05
PORTLAND & ocDENsBURo.
The Private Conference Saturday
Evening.

The committee on the reduction of the public
debt, to whom was referred the matter of the adj
visibility of forming some plan of re-organiza-
ton of the Portland & ogdensburg Railroad Com
pany, held a conference in the Mayors room at
the City Building Saturday evening with holders
of the second mortgage bonds and their represen
tatives. Among those present were MayorDeerng
VII Putnam, ESQ., Judge NathanWebb, Daniel f.
Emery, W. F. Lunt, Esq, J. S. Kicker, Theo L.
Woodbury., Weston f. Milliken, E. A. Noyes, H.
n Jose, City Solicitor Symonds City Treasurer
Jersey, Philip Henry Brown, w. H. Moulton and
City Clerk Burgess.
While it is understood that those who were pres
ent at the conference were mostly in favor of sui
shutting some voluntary method of re-organiza-
ton, by consent of all interested, in place of pro-
ceeding by the foreclosure of the mortgage, it is
also understood that Mr.. Putnam here, as in the
correspondence between himself and the Mayor
declined to express any opinion as to which meth
cd was in his judgment for the best interest of
the city.
Judge Webb, for himself and the other trustees,
expressly stated that they regardedit as no part
of their duty to decide, or to aid in deciding, what
course should be pursued by the second mortgage
bondhOlders after they were put in possession Ct
the road by the trustees; that the trustees had
confined their attention to obtaining title in the
road, by means of foreclosure, for the second
mortgage bondholders and they regarded their
duties as trustees as wholly done with They had
secured the title of the road and were able to give
tie second mortgage bondholders possession of it
as the security for their debt. How the second
mortgage bondholders were to re-organize was
question of which as trustee JudgeWebb had moth
ing to say, but as citizen, he felt an interest in
the subject and desire to see the control of the
road continued in the hands of the city The re-
suit Of Judge Wepbs remarks seemed to indicate
that in his Judgment reorganization of the COM
pany upon the basis of the foreclosure would give
the city the continued control of the road until
at least by some voluntary action of the city gov
ernment that control should be surrendered and
that he saw no reason why dividends upon the
stock, If they We're earned, should not be paid
just as much as interest upon new bonds, if they
were issued. While what was said by Judge
Webb was not i'll the form of a direct expression
Of opinion and while he took no part in the discus
sion as trustee, the impression produced by what
he said was decidedly of the opinion that it was
better for the city TO avail itself of the foreclos-
ure which had been procured by the trustees than
to waive the foreclosure and attempt to procure
the consent of all parties interested to any one of
the voluntary arrangements which had been pro
posed
The City Solicitor gave as his opinion that 1t
was better for the city-more for its interest in ev
cry way-to avail itself of the foreclosure and
through it obtain full title to the railroad proper
ty, subject to the prior incumbrances that by pro-
ceeding in that way the city could not loose its
property in the road or its control of it except by
some subsequent voluntary action of the city
council and if any action of the municipal govern
ment ever took place by which the city lost its
control of the road the responsibility would be
upon the city council which should hereafter lend
its aid to accomplish such result and not upon
the men, who by proceeding under the foreclosure
effected the cty's title to the whole property
while on the contrary there was no one of the 9TH
er schemes which had been proposed which did
not seem to him to involve the danger of the pos
sbe probable loss of the control of the road by
the city without its own action and against its
will.
Upen motion of w. f. Lunt, Esq, a committee
OF three appointed to present at an adjourned
meeting, a scheme for organization in detail, to
submit to holders of third mortgage bonds, float
ing debt and others affected by such organization
Messrs. W. f. Lunt, j. S. Kicker and Edward A.
Noyes were appointed on that committee
The meeting then adjourned to meet at the call
of His Honor, the Mayor.