The failure of the Northern Pacific was the signal for still more active and bitter personal struggles between opposing factions than had before occurred. The opposition, led by Brayton Ives and August Belmont, endeavored to get control of the company through the annual election on October 19, and to procure the removal of the appointed receivers. They displayed the greatest bitterness toward Mr. Villard, and held him responsible for the position in which the company was placed. Villard’s “remarkable qualities,” wrote Ives, “have been of advantage only to himself.... The syndicate composed of Villard, Colby, Abbott, and Hoyt, and their friends made millions [by the Wisconsin Central deal] and the Northern Pacific has suffered and is suffering a corresponding loss.”[597] Circulars were sent out asking proxies, and August Belmont, J. Horace Harding, Brayton Ives, Donald Mackay, and Winthrop Smith were appointed a committee to receive proxies as they came in. On the other side the directors appealed to the stockholders, reminded them that though the company had failed while they were in office it was also during their term that it had reached its greatest prosperity, and took the cautious step of amending the by-laws so as to shorten the term of future boards from three years to one. Conditions were against the management, and the result of the election was a complete victory for the Belmont-Ives party, which was followed up by the choice of Mr. Ives for president. The real results were less than might be supposed, for the operation of the railroad and the control of its funds were to be in the hands of the receivers and not in those of the officers of the road. On January 20 President Ives filed a petition in the Milwaukee Federal Court for an order directing the receivers to surrender the seal, books and papers and stock certificates, and to pay over sufficient money to enable the president to rent rooms and pay the salaries of the auditor, secretary, and treasurer.[598] The petition was denied, and the elected officers were left in an anomalous position.