The Days of a Man 



1893 



The 



"freezing 



out" 



process 



Pioneer 

 reception 



of the buildings, a calamity averted by the timely 

 discovery of a forgotten, paid-up life-insurance 

 policy, 1 the only insurance of any kind Mr. Stan- 

 ford ever carried. 



Another serious embarrassment arose from the 

 nature of the Stanford holdings; that is, the bulk 

 of the property, a one-fourth interest in the Southern 

 Pacific system, had to be maintained unbroken to 

 insure representation on the board of directors. 

 Divided, smaller parts might be subject to the process 

 of "freezing out," not unknown in railway history; 

 the untoward experience of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity in connection with the Baltimore and Ohio 

 we accepted as a warning. And during the panic 

 there were no buyers at all. 



Many minor incidents of the struggle I must 

 pass by. Wise management and rigid economy were 

 imperative, but Mrs. Stanford proved equal to the 

 new demands. If all else failed, there were the 

 jewels to fall back upon; and she steadily refused 

 to consider the advice (almost unanimous) to close 

 the University, or most of its departments, until 

 some more favorable time. In 1895 she invited the 

 Pioneer Class to a reception at her city home, be- 

 cause, as she told me, it was probably the last class 

 she could ever see graduate. For we still had noth- 

 ing to run on save the precarious "servant allow- 

 ance," liable to be cut down at any time. Occasion- 

 ally we sold some horses, but as our ownership of 

 the animals at the Stock Farm had not yet been 

 legally established, we were not sure whether they 

 were university property or part of the general 



1 This was policy No. I for $10,000, taken in pure good will at the organ- 

 ization of a new company on the Coast. 



C4983 



