with their fall those of the proprietary company went still lower. Mr. Villard hoped for a counteracting effect from the expected large increase of earnings from through-business. But though he eagerly watched from day to day and week to week for better figures, the receipts showed, after a short spurt, not only no gain, but an actual loss, from the stoppage of the transportation of construction material.
With these unfavorable developments, the burden of carrying the great floating debt of the Oregon & Transcontinental grew heavier and more fraught with danger of a collapse during the latter part of the autumn. Mr. Villard learned then the lesson taught him so often in Wall Street, that the throng of people which follows with alacrity the man who leads them to profits, will desert him just as quickly when he ceases to be a money-maker for them. He soon found that many of his most trusted friends, who formerly visited his offices regularly, had sold out their holdings and stayed away. He even discovered downright treachery among his confidential advisers, two of the Oregon & Transcontinental directors using their private knowledge of the condition of the company for enormous "short" sales of its shares. The press, too, that had sung Mr. Villard's praises hitherto, contained criticism of his companies, became more and more hostile, and gradually even vented bitter attacks upon his management and his personal character. His unshaken faith in his enterprises and his naturally sanguine disposition led him to make the double mistake, in the first place, of assuring anxious stockholders that the downward movement in his securities was the result of bear operations, and that an upward reaction was bound to set in directly, and advising them to increase their holdings at the lower prices; and, secondly, of trying to sustain his shares by large purchases for his own account. He utterly failed to perceive that, besides the specific reasons for the fall of his stocks, the financial markets generally were already showing the first symptoms of that sweeping and wide-spread crisis which had been brought on
