People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — HEAVILY INVOLVED. [ARTICLE]

HEAVILY INVOLVED.

The Santa Fe Road Unable to Meet Interest Payments. It Has Liabilities of 5240,000.000, and Upon tbe Petition of Its Bondholders, the System Goes Into the Hands of Receivers. BANTA FE GIVES UP. Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 27.—Another big railroad is in deep distress. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and SL Louis & San Francisco railroads and branches, comprising the Santa Fe system proper, have been placed in the hands of three receivers, the order being made by United States Circuit Judge 11. C. Caldwell, in chambers, in this city at 5:30 o’clock Saturday evening. The application was made by the Union Trust company of New York, trustees for the bondholders of the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe, and the Mercantile Trust company of New York, trustees for the bondholders of the St. Louis & San Francisco. Although the press of the country has anticipated the result for some time past, not until the death of Chairman George C. Magoun last week was any immediate action contemplated. The first intimation of decisive action was received at 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon when a special sleeper, the Catoosa, with baggage car attached, which left St. Louis at 2 o’clock in the morning, arrived over the Iron Mountain with prominent railway attorneys ana official* on board, who hastened at once to tljo federal courthouse and were soon oioseted with J udge Caldwell, who had arrived ffom St. Louis the night before. They remained closeted behind closed doors with Judge Caldwell until 5:30 o’clock, when an order was agreed upon appointing three receivers for the Santa Fe system: J. W. Reinhardt, president of the Santa Fe system; J. J. McCook, general counsel of the Santa Fe system, and Joseph C. Wilson, clerk of the United States district court at Topeka, Kan., the latter being a compromise receiver, the railroads having recommended Reinhardt, McCook and George C. Nickerson, the latter being a director of the system, but who was objected to by the complainants. The receivership met with no resistance on the part of the railroad companies, and an agreement was quickly reached. The bills in both cases—that of the Santa Fe and ’Frisco —showed that the lines were heavily involved, with maturing obligations coming on soon, and that the interest due January 1 could not be paid and would be foreclosed. In both cases the complainants’ bill wont elaborately into figures and were very full and voluminous. The bonded indebtedness aggregates $232,000,000, as follows: First mortgage bonds, $150,000,000; class A, second morgage bonds, $77,000,000; class B, second mortgage bonds, $55,000,000. The interest due January 1 will aggregate £3,000,000 and the floating debt is about $5,000,000, making a total liability of about $240,000,000. J. W. Reinhardt and J. J. McCook, two of the receivers, are well known in railroad circles throughout the country. The other receiver, Joseph C. Wilson, has been twice mayor of Topeka. A supplementary bill will likely be filed at Topeka January 5, which will be tantamount to foreclosure of the bonded indebtedness, in which event the branch lines, which have been sapping the life blood of the main lines, will be lopped off. The order in each of the two cases is the same and directs that the receivers be “authorized and directed to take immediate possession of all the railroads and properties (including 8,346 miles of operated lines) and to run, manage and operate them, and to execute the authority and franchises of the roads and conduct systematically their business*”