Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-10
PLACER COUNTY.
WHY IMMIGRANTS WILL NOT SETTLE
IN CALIFORNIA.
Are the Railroads Curse to the Country
Amount Paid to Labor-Inhance
Value of Real Estate.
NUMBER TEN.

has been to exhibit and illustrate the desira- !
bility of the foothills as place of residence
for those who are able to content themselves
with small farms Thus far this has been a
labor of love, and it has been an earnest work
because the spectators have not felt an in
teres. in the foothills. The whole desire has
been to direct striving people to country
where they can obtain good farms and build
up comfortable homes. The RECORD UNION
recognizes the high duty of the press to give
the people full and complete information
upon every subject that interests them. Al
ready these investigations begin to bear fruit,
as one may easily discern by conversing with
the emlgrants who are now coming westward
by car loads. These emigrants are passing
through California to Oregon, and by the
very best lands in the world, that can be OBJ
tanned at reasonable rates, and they recognize
the tact that they are passing through a
country far more desirable than the one to
which they are going If the reader wishes
to understand the reason let him board the
trains and
INTERVIEW THE IMMIGRANTS.
lie will there learn that the great stream of
| immigrants now coming have what they be-
lieve to be an all sufficient reason for avoid
ing California. They say they cannot settle
IN the Sacramento valley because the land is
monopolized by few men, and they will not
settle in the foothills because the lands are
owned and the people are dominated by
tyrannical railroad company" In proof of
both of these assertions they refer to the
newspapers political speeches and the pro-
ceedings of the Constitutional Convention.
Immigration to the foothills cannot be OBJ
tanned until the people at large are convinced
that the railroad is not a curse. Is the rail-
road a damage to Placer county? The in
vestigatiOn of this subject has been made
solely for the purpose of subscribing the well
fare of the foothill country and, in making
the investigation, the Central Pacific Rail
road Company has given free access to its
books. The reader will not be troubled with
an account of the work done in this matter,
nor with a statement of the various steps in
the investigation. The proposition and re-
| solve at the outset was to accept any result
that the facts might establish 1t was ex-
pected, in view of the never-ceasing denun-
cations of the railroad company, that there
would be discovered positive and aggravating
proofs of their expressions of the foothill
people. But after prolonged investigation,
and searching inquiry among the foothill peo-
pie, no proof whatever has been found to
support the opinion that the railroad COM
pany has been unjust or even inconsiderate
covers facts that demonstrate
| THE INESTIMABLE ADVANTAGE
i OF the railroad to the foothill people. The,
| facts will now be stated as found to exist. '
The Central Pacific Railroad Company has
added directly to the assessable wealth of the
county the following sums Rolling stock,
SS49, 727 90; railroad bed aud track, seventy
six miles, 81, IA 900; real estate, $50, 937;
personal property and improvements, S57,-
| ma a tot oil Of
addition of this large amount of capital alone
would make the difference between prosper
ity and adversely to any foothill county in
| the State. Ii the people had not possessed
single dollar, or if the county had been an
absolute wilderness, the investment of this
sum would have given an impulse to business
and immigration that would soon have
ended in the development of the country
Again, the actual expenditures of money in
the county have been enormous, and much
greater in amount than the sums received
from the people. To arrive at the amount
paid employees in Placer county during the
year 1878, July is taken as basis, as that
months expenses constitute low average for
the year, and it is found that the railroad
company
PAID To EMPLOYEES
In Placer county, during 1878, 1853, $50. Civ
ing employment to 1873 persons. In addition
to that, the company consumed in the same
month 3,0SS cords of engine wood, all cut
and used in that county. costing SIS, 800, or
S231, GOO for one year. A white man will, on
an average, cut about one cord day, so the
reader will see that the amount furnished
would give employment to about 103 men
during the year. Call these men employees,
and add to former figures, and it will be
found that the amount paid to employs in
Placer county in 1873 was S491, $50, and the
number of men employed, 476. These esti-
mates do not include any portion of the gem
eral office expenses, superintendent in the
various departments, etc, but simply the
amount paid to employees living in Placer
county. If now there is multiplied these
| figures by twelve, the number of years the
road has been operated, the result is a
total of 50. $685. 0S paid to employees res
ident in Placer county. This estimate.
however, excludes the large force necessary to
move the wood to the depots of the company,
and we exclude this large amount because we
are putting the
FIGURES EXTREMELY Low.
Common practice requires the addition to
the above total of the amounts paid for labor
in repairing snow galleries and bridges in
Placer county. The average of this class of
expenditures is So, 900 per month, or $50 600
per year, making total for the II years of
1892, 600; making the grand total of money
paid to labor in Placer county sc, $50, 70S.
| But the estimate is far below the actual
amount paid for labor in that county, as when
| the road was in course of construction millions
were so disbursed. The railroad company
has therefore furnished the people of Placer
with an enormous amount of money, and in
doing SO it has stimulated every industry in
the county. And that money has pas sed
from hand to hand, and been used by every
inhabitant. 1t has paid private debts, bought
personal comforts, and built up industries
wholly unconnected with the railroad COM
pany. Corresponding amounts will continue
to be disbarsed among the same people for all
time to come, and the railroad company will
be, in the future, as in the past, constantly
supplying the people of Placer with cir
Gu iating medium sufficient for the transaction
of ordinary business. The company is,
Their, >fore, to the people of Placer the equiv
alent IF bank, that furnishes a circulating
medium without asking the people to take
dollars fisk as to final result. This consid-
Grafton al ore is sufficient. or ought to be, to
convince Ii We people of Placer that the rail-
road is to the VI benefcent institution. The
railroad
IScRFA NsEs THE POPULATION
OF Placer cour 'ty. An impression exists
among a few per IONS in Placer that at one
time the county c obtained larger popula-
ton than at the pres, mt time. To satisfy upon
this point there was carefully read the old
files Of the Placer Herr I'D, and the oldest in.
habitants were searchir. ely questioned! and
the best minds in the COZ 'nty consulted, and
the result is the convictl on that no just
foundation for the opinion mat tlacer ever
contained a population ex ceeding eleven
thousand. At one time the Sc vsrai FORKS oil
the American river swarmed nth miners,
and those who remember this ia, 7 Zee: that
theremust have been averylarge pop uiaho1 at
that tine. But the sum total was tar less
than has been supposed, and many those
miners were really residents of Ell ID, >ra.los
which at that time contained popul Ni"n
twice as large that of Placer The en-
sus of the county was taken in 1852 and c.
cordiDg to that there We're then 10,7S,
people in the county, including 100 Indians
and 9,019 Chinese. In 1853 the Placer
Herald estimated the white inhabitants of
the county at G, 712 1.-THE whites of Ell Dorado
numbered 81 271), and that estimate was the
BASIS OF APPoRTIoNMENT
By the Legislature. Those who base their
calculations as to population on the large
number of votes cast from 1852 to 1868 must
remember that many voted scores of times,
and that the population was composed almost
exclusively of voters. Many of the people
included in the various enumerations have
since moved away, attracted by glowing &C.
counts from distant mines, and there are not
now in Placer county more than GOO who