Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-07-22
CONCERNING SOME CURRENT FALSE
ASSUMPTIONS

CONCERNING SOME CURRENT FALSE
ASSUMPTIONS.
Whenever it is sought, for the purpose
of making political capital, to excite public
hostility against the railroads, the OASIS oil
aggression and the pretense TOR COM
munistic measures is that the means
wherewith the railroads were built were
given by the people the inference being
that since the people gave the means they
have a perfect right to take away again
what they have given, we suppose. 1t
would be easy to show that even as stated
by the demagogues this is thoroughly
untenable position; but in truth the case
is not as stated by them, and since the
false assumptions with which they set out
breed a perfect swarm of fallacies IN
the end, it is necessary to expose their
unreality as clearly as possible. One of the
most potent sources OF confusion IN discuss
ing the railroad question is the tendency to
mingle cause and effect. and past and pres
ent. The only way to get at the correct
view is to go back to the conditions which
existed when the contract was made be-
tween the railroad builders and the Gov
ernments, Federal, State and county. In
the first place such review demonstrates
that there was no gift on the part OF
the Governments. There was simply a
contract, which was based upon mutual
services and considerations. The Govern
ment undertook to pay so much money,
guarantee such and such bonds, or make
over certain lands, in consideration of
specified things to be done and services to
be rendered by the corporations. Every
railroad act in fact is a perfectly PLAIN and
explicit declaration to the effect that the
Congress or State Legislature regarded the
construction of railroad as being worth SO
much to the community; the said value
being represented, in each case, by the
amount the nation or State, or both, were
willing to pay to have the work performed.
Again, in discussing the subsequent re-
lations between the public and the rail-
roads, demagogues always fall into hopeless
confusion in regard to the past and present
values of lands granted the corporations.
1t is common, for example, to read dia-
tribes about the wickedness of giving away
"the patrimony of the people; )" the fact
being that the past value of the land is
being measured by its present value,
whereas its present value is entirely caused
all when it was granted. 1t could only be
lifted into productiveness by building rail-.
roads to and through it. So it appears
that what the Government granted away
was without any value to the people at the
time, and without any other prospective
value than that which the railroads alone
could give it. In the next place this land
was not "given away" 1t was paid away
for value received, and the value was enor-
mously in excess of the consideration. In
exchange for few million acres of land
which could not be utilized, the people
have obtained whole territories of pro-
ductive country. The railroads have made
easy the settlement of regions which with.
out them could not have been brought
under cultivation for hundred years.
They have equalized the comforts and con-
veniences of the people. They have put
the frontier on level with the centers of
civilization. They have extended the area
of profitable production, as regards the
cereals, enormously. They have enabled
men to settle thousands OF miles further
! from civilization than they ever could
before.
They have appreciated land values for hun
dreds of miles on either side of them. They
have created permanent land values over
broad regions which had before no quotable
value. They have made the property Of
every man within reasonable reach of them
worth from five to ten times what it was
before they were built. And now, be-
cause they have thus literally created
capital, and have thus enriched the whole
country, the demagogues make it cause
of complaint against them that they have
so enhanced values everywhere. The
demagogues also say, and think it crush
ing argument, that the Pacific Railroad
builders did not put much capital into the
p,A
these demagogues do not know what
capital means. 1t does not mean SIM
ply money. 1t means brains, energy,
sagacity, perseverance, courage, judgment,
tact. Now the proof of what our railroad
builders really invested lies in the results
of their work. When the Pacific Rail-
roads were to be built the undertaking
was open to the whole nation. Congress
stood ready to contract with any company
that would take up the enterprise. But
the whole nation shrank from it. How
long ago is it since Stanford, Croker, Hop
kins and Huntington opened the books of
the Central Pacific Railroad in San Fran
cisco, and could not get single share
taken? The truth is all the country was
afraid of the project and nobody believed
in it. Those few men came forward and
risked their all upon it. They faced the
dangers of the war, the disorganizsd state
of the public credit, the dearth of labor,
the difficulty of procuring funds, and they
declared their willingness to carry out the
undertaking. Is it not outrageous nom
sense to say that they put nothing into the
project?
They took great contract. The Govern.
ment had no idea of "giving them any
thing. On the contrary, it believed that it
had not paid them enough to constitute an