Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-25
AN OLD MARES NEST REsURREcrED.


A Sacramento correspondent of the San
Francisco Chronicle has dug up and blaz-
oned forth as new discovery an old story
about the contract of the Central Pacific
Railroad Company with the State of Cali
fornia. The whole subject-matter has
been investigated by a legislative commit
tee which was decidedly unfriendly to the
corporation, and it was then abandoned as
presenting no ground of complaint. The
present attempt to resurrect it appears to
have been prompted about equally by
malice and ignorance, but as the facts may
have been forgotten by some of our readers
we will rehearse them. Under the provis.
ions of can Act to aid the construction
''of the Central Pacific Railroad in the
estate of California, F" approved April 25,
1863, it was agreed that the State should
aid the railroad by paying interest on Sl2,-
900, 600 of it's bonds, and that in return
the company should carry all public mes
sengers, convicts and lunatics free, and
transport material for the State Capitol,
and articles intended for exhibition at
the State Fair, as well as all State
troops and munitions in case of war, with
out charge. The railroad further agreed
that it would, within ninety days after a
"receipt of patent therefor from the
United States, execute, acknowledge
"deed in fee simple for the conveyance
"of that tract of land containing what
are known as the Rocklin stone quarries.
The point attempted to be made by the
Chronicles correspondent is, that inasmuch
as the company has not yet obtained a
patent to this land, and consequently has
not conveyed it to the State, it has violated
its contract. This is rubbish. In the
first place the contract calls for nothing
more than the conveyance of the land
within ninety days after the receipt of the
patent from the United States. 1t follows
until the patent has been issued, and that
for any one to talk of violation of con-
tract under the circumstances is prepos.
ferrous.
The correspondent referred to, however,
has the effrontery to speak of " fraud in
this connection, and bases it upon his own
fantastic conception of what the company
might, would, could or should have known
concerning the future, when it signed the
contract. This ineffable donkey in fact
solemnly charges that inasmuch as the
United States Government has not yet
issued the patent, the Central Pacific CON-
pony must have been aware that it was
not going to issue the patent. This is the
kind of nonsense that is evolved when
much malice and little sense go to work
together. The actual facts of the case are
as folio VS.: The reason why the patent has
not been issued is that several mineral
claims were long since filed upon the tract
in controversy. Under the idiotic mining
laws of this coast it was possible to enter
a granite quarry as mineral land, and this
was done in the case we are speaking of.
A law which compelled every claimant OF
agricultural land to furnish proof that it
contained no minerals, opened the door for
this or any other absurdity and wrong.
But it is the fault of that state of the law
that the title to the Rocklin quarries has
been all these years in dispute, and that
the railroad company has not been able to
get patent to the land.
The company has made repeated and
persistent efforts to get the question of title
settled, and it has offered to make quit
claim of the property to the State at any
time, SO that the latter should succeed at
once to all its interests in the matter. The
slanderous character of the charge now
preferred against it is further demonstrated
by the fact that it has quite as much reason
as the State for desiring prompt decision,
inasmuch as it is being kept out of the
other half of the tract in controversy all the
time. But this whole question was taken
up and thoroughly investigated by the
Archer Railroad Committee, several years
ago, and all that committee discovered was
that the Central Pacific Company had been
q great deal better than its contract, and
had given the State ten times the service
it had promhed. For whereas under its con-
tract it was only bound to carry public
messengers, lunatics, convicts, State fair
exhibits, ETC., over the Central Pacific
Railroad between Sacramento and Ogden,
as a matter Of fact it had carried them
over all its roads upon the same terms.
Assemblyman Archer was not the man to