CHAPTER TWENTY 



Death of 



the 



founder 



Southern 

 Pacific 



IN June, 1893, I went with Mrs. Jordan to Sisson 

 at the foot of Mount Shasta, intending to spend 

 there a month's vacation. But one morning when 

 I had climbed to snow line on the mountain, I 

 was overtaken by an Indian on horseback bearing 

 a telegram which announced the sudden death of 

 Mr. Stanford. Hurrying home full of distress for 

 Mrs. Stanford in her grief, and saddened by a sense 

 of personal loss, we soon discovered that the whole 

 face of things was changed at the University and 

 this through no fault of the founders or of the educa- 

 tional staff. 



Apoplexy had been the immediate cause of Mr. 

 Stanford's death. Behind that, however, lay no 

 doubt his apprehension of the tremendous financial 

 strain which he realized would fall upon him, for 

 a special reason, in the panic he saw approaching; 

 as to this particular matter my information was 

 derived solely from Stanford himself. 



At that time the entire Southern Pacific corpora- 

 tion (with which the original Central Pacific had 

 been merged) was held by the estates of the four 

 builders, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, 

 Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker -^- the last 

 two being already deceased, and Huntington hav- 

 ing with characteristic adroitness secured a little 

 more than one fourth of the stock and then ousted 

 Stanford from the presidency, which he himself 

 assumed. Meanwhile, relying on Huntington's 

 promise that his (Stanford's) share of the earnings 



