The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-20
The GREAT PaC.ElC LINE.

mortgage BOnds-Aro ghev secureI
lhls IS the first question with every in
Vestor. II is not doubted that the great
Paoiho line win be finished at an early day.
Inc entire cost of the whole road is not ex-
pected to vary much from $l1O, 900, OOOf exclu-
slVe OF equipment, and of this sum Govern
ment furnishes $50, ,O0OO 600 of United States
Six Per Cent. Bonds, which are equal to
money, for which it takes Second Mortgage
as security, and makes a donation of over
2O,000,0 900 acres of land, while the Companv's
own First Mortgage Bonds to an additional
$4,000, 900 may be issued in addition to the
stock subscription, thus providing ample
means for the completion of this road Ten
thousand men are now cutting their way
through and over the Sierra Nevadas of Cali
fornia, coming east, and the track from
Omaha west is being laid more rapidly than
was ever before known in the history of rail
road building. 345 miles are finished and
fully equipped with locomotives, etc., and the
cars are running over it, and the remaining
distance to the Rocky Mountains, making SIT
miles, is under contract to be done by Septem-
Der ] of the present year. If company
which has already shown so much energy, and
which is known to include many of the
largest capitalists of the country, could fail in
completing what they have begun, the work
would not stop. The present trouble with the
Indians shows that there is no way to pacifg
that region of country but to civiIize it, and
there is no civilizer like the locomotive and
the population and business that follow in its
train.
General Sherman says the United States
Government could well afford to build the
whole road, and would make money by the
operation. II is an indispensable national
necessity, and, by advancing fifty million
dollars in its own bonds, and by donation of
1880 acres of land per mile, the Government
practically guarantees its completion, for it can
not afford to stop short of it. But the Union
Pacific Railroad Company is in itself a strong
corporation. Many of its members are rail
road builders of large experience, and they
have paid in five millions of their own money
on the work already done, as a part of the
capital stock. On this stock they doubtless
expect to secure liberal dividends, but which,
of course, can be paid only after the interest
on the bonded debt is provided for. Shrewd,
practical business men, like those who are en-
gagged in this enterprise as directors and stock
holders, who are never known as specu-
lators, do not make such investments without
careful examination, and with full assurance
Of their value.
On the line of SIT miles from Omaha to the
base of the Rocky Mountains, now nearly
completed, and on which over twenty million
dollars have already been expended, the Union
Pacific Company is permitted by law to issue
its First Mortgage Bonds only to the same
amount which it receives from the Govern
ment, viz, $4,000 per mile, amounting to
$8,272000. The net earnings of the finished
portion of the road during the month of May
were more than four times the interest on the
Company's bonds issued upon it and as each
section is done, these earnings must show q
proportionate increase. If so much is earned
on the local business of these sections nos0,
what may we not expect when the grand line
of near 1900 miles is open to the Pacific in
1870, when it will receive the great tide Of
travel and business which will flow over it to
the vast mining regions not yet develeped-to
California and the whole western coast of the
North American continent, and going further
vet, to China and Japan The road will have
no competitor, and the Company can charge
such rates as will be profitable to themselves,
and yet be economical to the public.
Does it need any argument beyond the plain
statement of facts to show that the First Mort
gage Bonds of such road are entitled to take
the very highest rank among our public secu'
rites We believe they will certainly do it as
soon as they are generally known and already
very considerable amounts are daily subscribed
for. AS the interest on these bonds is six pei
cent. in gold, the price at which they are now
offered $50 cents on the dollar) makes them
pay an interest of nine per cent. to the holder