18933 The Government Suit 



estate, though fortunately our assumed right was 

 never contested. 



During these difficult days Mrs. Stanford was 

 heartened by the support of certain friends, es- 

 pecially three members of the provisional board of 

 trustees. Judge Francis E. Spencer, Judge Samuel 

 F. Leib, and Timothy Hopkins. No one can tell 

 how much the University owed to the friendly and 

 practical interest of these devoted people. Judge ?itanch 

 Spencer, Mrs. Stanford's representative on the ^^pp^^^^^^ 

 Southern Pacific board of directors, was particu- 

 larly alert as to her interests in that connection. 

 Judge Leib, who became president of the provisional 

 board of trustees after Spencer's death, looked 

 after investments and safeguarded the properties 

 from outside attack. Mr. Hopkins (who had al- 

 ready equipped our Marine Station at Pacific 

 Grove) gave special attention to immediate needs, 

 buying books and apparatus without taking re- 

 ceipts or asking returns. From across the sea, also, 

 Welton Stanford extended his warm sympathy, 

 concretely expressed in the gift of a Library Build- 

 ing and various works of art. 



During the course of 1893, adjustments being well ^ 

 under way, we had at last begun to see daylight, l\lff'"'^ 

 when the institution received a staggering blow 

 from an entirely unexpected quarter. Near the 

 end of the year the United States, in the name of the 

 Attorney General, brought suit of the nature of an 

 injunction to prevent distribution of the Stanford 

 estate until ^15,000,000, Stanford's share of the 



C 499 3 



