Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-03-30
CHAPTER XII. THE MAN IN POSSESSION.

Appraised at its value in the current
 coin of street gossip, the legal seiz.
 ure of the Trans-Western figured
 mainly as an example of the failure
 of modern business methods when ap-
 piled to the concealment of a work
 ing corporations true financial condi-
 ton.
 But in the state at large the press
 was discussing the event from a po-
 litical point of view; one section,
 small but vehement, raising the cry
 of trickery and judicial corruption,
 end prophesying the withdrawal of all foreign capital from the state, while
 the other, large and complacent,
 pointed eloquently to the benefcent
 working of the law under which the cause of the poor woman, suing for her undoubted right, might be made the whip to fog corporate tyr11ny in- to instant subjection.
 ! As for the dispossessed sttrk-h ta- CTS in the faraway east, they were slow to take the alarm, and still slower to get concerted action. Like many of the western roads, the Western Pacific had been capitalized largely " popular subscriptions hence there vas no single holder, or group of Holders, of sufficient financial weight 4D enter the field against the spoilers. But when Loring and his associates had fairly got the wires hot with the tale of what had been done, and the much more alarming tale of what was likely to be done, the Boston lnertness vanished. A pool of the etock was formed, with the members If the advisory board as nucleus; 3oney was subscribed, and no less tsgal light than an ex.attorney-general M the state of Massachusetts was de- spatched to the seat of war to ad- wise with the men on the ground. None the less, disaster out-travels the swiftest of limited" trains. Before the heavily-feed consulting attorney had crossed the Hudson in his western journey, Wall Street had taken notice, and there was a momentary splash in the troubled pool of stock exchange and vanishing circle of ripples to show where the Western Pacific had lgone down.
 In the meantime Major Guilford, somewhile president of the Apache National bank of Gaston, and ante cedent to that. the frowning autocrat of 25-mile logging road in the North Carolina mountains, had given bond in some sort and had taken possess sion of the sompany's property and the offices in the Quintard building.
 His first official act as receiver was heads of departments, beginning with the general manager and pausfng for the moment with the supervisor of track. That done, he filled the vacan- cies with political troughsmen; and with these as assistant decapitators the major passed rapidly down the line. striking off heads in daily patches un- til the overflow of the Bucks political | following was provided for on the rail- roads pay-rolls to the wifes cousins l nephew.
 This was the work of the first few administrative days 1or weeks, and | . while it was going on, the business Sattitude of the road remained un- changed. But once seated firmly in the saddle, With his awkward squad we'll in hand, the major proceeded to throw bomb of consternation into the camp of his competitors.
 Kent was dining with Ormsby in the grill-room of the Camelot club when the waiter brought in the evening edition of the Argus, whose railroad reporter had heard the preliminary hzztng of the bomb fuse. The story was set out on the first page, first column, with appropriate headlines. WAR TO THE KNIFE AND THE
 KNIFE TO THE HILT.
 TRANS-wEsTERN CUTS CoMMoDI-
 TY RATES
 Great Excitement in Railroad Circles. ' Receiver Guilford's Hold-up. Kent ran his eye rapidly down the column and passed the paper across to Ormsby.
 T told you so," he said. They didn't find the road insolvent, but they are going to make it so in the shortest possible order. A rate war will do it quicker than anything else on earth"
 Ormsby thrust out his jaw.
 Have we got to stand by and see lem do it?"
 ''The man from Massachusetts says yes, and he knows. or thinks he does. He has been here two weeks now, and he has nosed out for himself all the dead-walls. We can't appeal. because there is no decision to appeal from. We can't take it out of the lower court until it is finished in the lower court. We can't enjoin an off, ger of the court: and there is no au- hority fin the state that will set aside Judge MacFarlane's order when that ,rder was made under technically le- yai conditions" You could have told him all that n the first i've minutes" said Ormsby. Il did tell him. and was mildly sat lpon. To-day he came around and ave me back my opinion, clause for lause. as his own. But I have no lick coming. Somebody will have to e here to fight the battle to a finish rhen the judge returns, and our ex- ert will advise the Bostonians to re- ain me"