time in the history of the state its legislative assembly had been openly and unblushingly corrupted; and the damage, disgrace, and dishonor thus inflicted on the commonwealth far outweighed any possible benefit Holladay's railroad enterprise ever did the state; but armed with this resolution, Holladay proceeded to Washington City to induce Congress to set aside the acts of the Secretary of the Interior in recognizing the Oregon Central Railroad Company as entitled to the land grant. On this question the Oregon delegation divided, one senator espousing the cause of Holladay and the other remaining immovable in his support of the rightful claimant of the land grant. Congress finally adopted a compromise, and passed an act to give the land to the company which should first complete twenty miles of road; and Holladay won the land grant on that stake.
The Salem (east side) Company was not yet out of trouble. Notwithstanding it had purchased an indorsement from the Oregon legislature, and had been recognized by Congress as entitled to compete for the land grant, and had actually won it by completing the first twenty miles of the road, yet Judge Deady's decision was fairly a sentence of dissolution, death, and defeat. Conscious of its inherent illegal organization, and forbidden to use the corporate name it had unlawfully usurped, and without which it could neither raise money by selling bonds, or even condemn the right of way for its road, it may well be imagined the east side company was in straits from which it required a master's hand for delivery. Its attorneys, doubtless, saw well enough what our supreme court afterwards decided, that it could neither take nor hold the land grant. In this dilemma Holladay applied to the distinguished New York lawyer Wm. M. Evarts, who was afterwards secretary of state under President Hayes, and who, after investigating the whole matter, devised the plan of incorporating a new
