The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-19
THE PACIFIC RAILROAD swINpLE.


folies and extravagances with determined
precipitancy, to wait until the day of preven-
ton is past and then to investigate the ma
ture, and cause of the resulting mischiefs.
The second stage of this process has been
reached in the case of the government endow-
ment of the Union Pacific railroad. The
bulk of forty millions of bonds has been
swallowed up by this impudent, braggart and
voracious project; and it is only just now
dawning upon the remarkable craftsmanship
which NEEDLES and muddles, at Washington,
with everything public and private in the
country, that the government has no security
for the loan of its credit but second mortgage
on road that is so far fiction even In re-
spect to large proportion of those sections
which have been officially announced as COM
pleted The same profound intellect is also
discovering at length that the Union Pacific
railroad, even when complete through its
whole length, will be liable to a
snow blockade of six or eight months
of the year fact that at first
must have been selfevident to every school
boy whose geographical studies had been car
ried as far as this road pretends to be actually
extended. AS remedy against this period
ical suffocation with snow, the erection of
snow sheds has been suggested. But the
portion of the road traversing a snow coun-
try is about thousand miles, fully one-half
of which distance would have to be covered
in to make the route practicable for winter
use Abstractly to furnish such covering
is not impossible. 1t is simply question of
money. But whence is the money to come
The company which has been prosecuting the
enterprise with the fruits of government credit,
is apart from this extrinsic resource,
mere bubble deriving its affiatus from such
phrases as manifest destiny" westward
the march of empire takes its way" "the
interoceanic highway of the world" "the
American eagle, spanning the Rocky Noun
tains with iron claws, and dipping one wing
in the Atlantic, the other in the Pacific.
When George Francis Train used to spout
such stuff, under the inspiration of free rides
to Omaha and speculative town lots in that
fungous city, all people possessing ordinary
intelligence laughed at the gushing strain of
patriotism and avarice. But the intelligence
of those who direct legislation at Washington
is not ordinary. TO them Trains eloquence
was in the highest degree edifying. 1t was
precisely what they wanted-what they had
longed for from the first, 10 enable them to see,
along the far stretch of the projected railroad
over sterile wastes and at snowy attitudes,
what was not to be seen. The company itself
having no more substantial basis than spread
eagleism and bathos to rest upon, the ques-
ton recurs whence is the money to come
to protect the road against the snow blockade,
and to render it available for the purposes of
government and commerce in winter as well
as summer? 1t must be raised by new issues
of government bonds, if at all. And what
would be the amount required? Of this
some idea may be had by computing the
probable cost per mile for four or five
hundred miles of strong and durable snow
sheds, through region about as destitute of
timber as Sahara is of water, or-to take an
extreme illustration-as the Radical civil SER
vice is of common honesty and decent capa-
city. The aggregate cost would certainly not
be less than the loan already conceded to the
company. As much as forty million dollars,
then, must be added to the national debt, whose
magnitude is already the despair of fnanciers
and the curse of taxpayers, in order to con-
vert this laundering and swindling project
into such highway as the government needs
and as commerce desires. But the additional
loan will not be granted not, at least, by the
present Congress or the next. And this is not
the worst. The scandalous abortion in which
government subvention has resulted in this
instance is already used in Congress and out
of Congress as an argument against the repe-
tition Of the experiment in aid of Pacific rail-
road projects in ATTITUDES free from snow, and
along routes which are shorter, which traverse
more fertile regions, and which offer vastly
more natural advantages for construction. 1t
is obvious that the most eligible of routes is
one leaving the Mississippi, near the parallel
of thirty-two, and going thence to the Rio
Grande. From that point both the Pacific
coast of California and the Pacific coast of
Mexico would be easily accessible. This ac-
complished, the symbolic bird of the United
States might, without absurdity, flop his meta
phorical, rans-continental wings, as a signal
of triumph, into both oceans for he would
OF both CALIFORNIA;, of Arizona and of Sonora
and other Northern Mexican provinces, the
richest on this continent and his prophetic
beak would be within an inch Of the heart of
Mexico, ready at any moment to seize it as
one of the precious morsels which manifest
destiny has in reserve for his eaglets. But
the Union Pacific railroad swindle would seem
to have postponed indefinitely the day for the
realization of this spectacle. At least there
appears at this moment small prospect of any
considerable assistance from the government.
Having loaned even more of its credit than it
could spare to build Pacific railroad along
the worst Of routes, it has none left to pro-
mote one along the best Of routes. Theincom-
ing President is opposed to such subventions.
Congress begins to feel, or to affect, repent
ance and reform on the subject. Hence it