JANE LATHROP STANFORD 163 



political or personal or what not, which inspired it. Fortunately, just 

 now it makes no difference. 



The hardest feature of the matter lay in the attitude of those 

 jointly interested in the ownership of the Southern Pacific System. 

 These men declined to give any assistance in the struggle for justice 

 and for the endowment of the university. All were financially con- 

 cerned in the final outcome, but they left her to make the fight alone 

 and at her own cost. 



It should be said that none of the present owners or managers of 

 the Southern Pacific were in any way concerned in this matter. It is 

 also fair to say that this attitude was only the business man's point of 

 view. It seemed impossible to save the estate and the university to- 

 gether. All receipts of the railroads (there were no profits) were 

 needed to continue its operations, and the outlays of the university 

 seemed to the other owners of the railway system to involve a danger- 

 ous policy. On the other hand, to Mrs. Stanford the estate existed 

 solely for the benefit of the university. To save the estate on these 

 terms was to her like throwing over the passengers to lighten the ship. 

 And as matters turned out, the university, the estate and the railway 

 were all saved alike. 



Perhaps we can get at the nature of this suit from a couple of let- 

 ters written at the time. I find on our files a letter sent in November, 

 1894, to President Eliot of Harvard. In this letter I said : 



I recognize of course that public sentiment can not be formed without a 

 basis of knowledge. The peculiar conditions in which this university finds itself 

 are not easily stated to the public. There are internal reasons why we can not 

 well take the country into confidence. Some of these reasons are connected with 

 the relations of the Stanford heirs. Others arise from our relations to our 

 future partner, in whose power we are, until the government suit is disposed of, 

 that is, until the settlement of the estate. 



The grounds of the government suit, in brief, are these. The Central Pacific 

 Railroad was regarded as an impossibility by most of the people of California. 

 Its builders exhausted their funds and their credit and tried in vain to get help 

 from every quarter, even after receiving large donations of land then worthless. 

 The U. S. government came to their aid, whether wisely or not, ... it does not 

 matter at present. The road when finished bore a first mortgage, covering all 

 that it is now worth. The government took a second mortgage upon it as 

 security for the payment of the debt due for the bonds it had advanced in aid 

 of the corporation. . . . 



There is a law in California, by which the original stockholders in a cor- 

 poration are personally liable for its debts, if suit be begun within three years 

 after the organization of the corporation. This law was intended to check 

 " wild-cat " speculations. 



It is claimed that under this law the estates of Stanford and Huntington 

 are still liable for the amount of the second mortgage, to come due in a few 

 years. It is claimed that the three-years' limitation does not hold against the 

 government. This question of liability had not been raised when the estates of 

 the two remaining partners were distributed, and its enforcement would be 

 possible as against the Stanford estate alone, as Mr. Huntington, being alive, 



