Show I ROCKETLLER I AFTER GOLD Oil Trust ITagnate to Build a Railroad Rail-road Into f Rainy Lake John D Rockefeller has the gold fever it is believed and seriously beleved contemplates con-templates extending his operations beyond be-yond the plebeian fields of oil and iron into the alluring realm of the yellow metal The reason for this belief says the Chicago Tribune is found in the action of the board of directors of the Duluth Iron Range railroad which is generally considered t be controlled by the Rockefeller interest in voting to increase the stock from 3000000 to 10000000 at a meeting held in this city yesterday This followed as the result of the action of the stockholders at a meeting held in Duluth the day before The connection between this action and operations in the gold fields is found in the wellgrounded suspicion that a large amount of this unusually large increase of stock is to be devoted de-voted to the construction of a branch line of the road extending up into the Rainy Lake gold regions lying on the American and Canadian border which are likely to become very rich pro ducers There was a disposition on the part of the directors to deny that any such movement was contemplated although admitted that the officers of the road had been approached in regard to the matter of building a road into that region and that it might be done if it could be done to advantage Those present at the meeting were H H Porter of the Chicago Eastern Illinois road Marshall Field J L Greatsinger Duluth president of the Duluth Iron Range road D E Bacon Ba-con of Tower Minn president of the Minnesota Iron company which is the heaviest stockholder of the road C W Holland of Duluth secretary and treasurer of the road M J Carpenter Chicago chairman of the board of directors di-rectors C P Coffin and James Belden of Chicago and J H Chandler Chicago I Chi-cago general solicitor of the road I Other directors not present were D O Mills and George S Brewster of New York The present mileage of the road is 154 extending from Two Harbors on the northern shore of Lake Superior 27 miles east of Duluth in a northeasterly direction to Ely Minn It lies entirely along the Mesaba range and in connection con-nection with a fleet of 1 steel boats nine steamers and five barges is engaged en-gaged i transporting the ore of the Minnesota Iron company to market The two corporations while distinct in name are in fact identical in their interests and both are supposed to be dominated by the Rockefeller interests To build into the Rany Lake region would involve the construction of about 80 miles of road and it is difficult to reconcile the large increase of stock just voted with any other scheme of improvements I is admitted that its I purpose in addition to making extensive exten-sive improvements along the range in the way of added mileage and increase of rolling stock is to put anq corpora tion in a position to take advantage of any contingency which may arise arse which under the circumstances i is not unreasonable to assume lies in the I direction of a Rainy Lake branch J H Chandler general solicitor of the road speaking of the action of the directors said that under the laws of I Minnesota no stock can be issued except ex-cept it be fully paid up either in money property labor or material and that I the new stock will only be issued and used from time to time as required in I making necessary extensions of the road and improvements A large sum would be spent he said in the construction I construc-tion of additional docks at Two Harbors bors while 1000000 will be spent in the new equipment during 1S98 The road has a charter he said to build to the Gun Flint lake country about 63 miles distant in a northeasterly direction di-rection on the border but nothing would be done until it became apparent that it would prove a paying Investment invest-ment He said the road had been solicited so-licited to build into the Rainy Lake region and might do so |