meetings, it was agreed in writing to form a construction company for carrying it out, to the capital of which the Union Pacific people should contribute one half and Mr. Villard and his friends the other half. On Mr. Villard's recommendation, they authorized him, as the first step, to acquire a controlling interest in the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, a flourishing company with its seat at Portland, which had a monopoly of the traffic of the Upper and Lower Columbia and Snake River through its ownership of the portages by short railroads around the obstructions to navigation on the Columbia at the Cascades and the Dalles. With this special object, he left New York in April, 1879, on his usual spring visit to Oregon.
In the meantime, new trouble had sprung up for the Oregon Steamship Company. The pooling arrangement with the first opposition had been in force only about seven months when a new competitor appeared on the Portland-San Francisco line. Some California speculators had bought the Great Republic, a laid-up old side-wheeler of great carrying capacity, put her in repair and on the route, evidently for blackmailing purposes. The cutting of passenger and freight rates to losing figures soon followed. The European creditors, who for a long time had received nothing on account of the principal and interest of their original advance, owing to the payments for the new steamers and the losses from the first competition, now became hopeless, and early in the year 1879 Mr. Villard was advised that they were willing to sell out at a large sacrifice. He urged them not to do so, but, as they persisted, he made his first effort to form a syndicate in New York to buy them out. He easily accomplished his object, and the transaction was closed before he went West. It ended his dependence on the creditors, much to his relief, as the duty of satisfying a group of disappointed foreign bankers had gradually become very irksome. The success of the new venture of himself and his friends depended upon the cessation of the opposition. He was surprised on his way
