finance. It was appalling, audacious. But nevertheless the money was promptly- given him. And this was the formation of the historic "blind pool" to control the Northern Pacific Railroad, never attempted before and never repeated since.
With this $8,000,000 Villard purchased a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific, got control in June, 1881, and was elected president in September. He immediately started an army of men to complete the great work. J. L. Hallett of Washington county, Oregon, was superintendent of construction on the west end, Hans Thielsen of Portland, chief engineer; and the work was pushed with such force and vigor that an observer might have supposed that the entire army of the United States was pushing construction of a military work in time of a great war. It was the supreme test of Villard's mental and physical strength. He was at that time president of the Northern Pacific, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., the Oregon Steam Navigation Co., and the Oregon & California Co., and was raising the money for and pushing construction work on all these lines. But he proved his matchless ability by successfully carrying out these great enterprises, and on September 8, 1883, completing the Northern Pacific across the continent and connecting its steel bands with those of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company at the long since abandoned town of Ainsworth on the north side of Snake river just above its confluence with the Columbia. And thus planned and formed what I have named "The Oregon Railroad Sys- tem." How long Villard was considering this idea, no one knows. He doubt- less mentioned it to others, but the first time the author of this book heard of it was at the dinner table of Senator Nesmith, at his farm on the La Creole in Polk county, in 1874, while accompanying Villard- on a trip of observation through the Willamette valley. The grand conception was his in origin and execution; and although hampered by doubters and opposed by powerful ene- mies, he triumphed over all obstacles and made its success the most enduring monument of his fame as one of the most forceful characters and honorable men of his day and generation. The people of Oregon have but slightly com- prehended and do yet but little appreciate the great work he wrought for the state. He planned his work upon "the lines of the least resistance," he worked in harmony with the laws of nature and upon plans laid down by the great archi- tect of our planet; and his record and his work is invincible. And now, after spending years of effort and millions of money to reverse the plans of Villard and carry the trade of the "Inland Empire" over the Cascades to Puget Sound,' the great capitalists of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads are , forced to admit the correctness of Villard's plans, and expend twenty million dollars to rectify the blunder of opposing them. It was the keen foresight of Henry Villard that saw in the distance all the local wealth and production, trade and population of the empire lying west of the Rocky mountains from the California line to British Columbia, and all the transcontinental commerce between the same lines pouring its tribute for all time to come down easy grades through the Columbia gateway to a great city to be built at the junction of the Willamette and Columbia; and now, not one road but four are vieing with each other to utilize this water-level pass to the great Pacific and the still greater Orient.
Henry Villard was born in 1835 of an honorable and influential family in
Speyer, kingdom of Bavaria, Germany. In the revolution of 1849, his father
was a loyalist and the presiding judge of an important court. Young Villard
was at school at the gymnasium, wore a red feather in his cap and refused to
pray for the king. For this offense he was suspended, and managed to get out
of his youthful disloyalty by going to a school over in France. _ Subsequently
pardoned, he returned and completed his studies at the University of Munich.
He came to the United States in 1853, tarried with relatives near Bellville,
III, for a year, then drifted into journalism, became a war correspondent in the
