Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-12-05

vacant lands, creating the demand for the
survey of the Government tracts and their
placement upon the market, while the
lands adjacent to those granted in aid of
the great purpose of the Government to
further the rapid construction of the rail
road, were doubled in value, and thus the
Government actually realized upon the
investment precisely as if it had been
possible-as it was MOTTO have disposed
of all its lands in the first instance at the
standard price.
The prospector plunged into the hills Of
the bosom of the continent, and the min
eral wealth of the great basin and all its
mountainous ramparts was explored and
laid bare. Mere guarded camps sprang
into villages, and towns expanded into
cities. Agriculture took the place of the
Indian hunting grounds, while the savage
fell back before the march of civilization
of which the chiefest agency was the steam
car bearing the broad protection of the
| Government messenger.
Commerce upon the Pacific coast took
its departure from new starting point,
and was born again to new destinies. Trade,
before uncertain and crippled, rose as a
giant from its bonds, while industry sprang
into new life and realization of its
mighty strength. Retrospection, indeed,
so floods memory with the endless details
of vast and beneficial changes the compile
ton of the rail mail routes brought about,
that it is almost impossible, looking back
from this date, to fully grasp the truth and
calmly reflect upon the results that are,
and are to be.
We turn to the debates in Congress upon
the granting of aid to these agencies, and
find, in truth, that not one of the then
imaginative pictures of the immense infiu-
ence for rapid development of the country
that the roads would exercise was over.
drawn. 1t was customary then to look
upon oratorical effort in that direction as
fanciful and overcolored to degree that
excited the ridicule of those less sanguine
than the far-sighted men who conceived
the idea of transcontinental rail routes
and the devoted men whose iron wills and
untiring patience accomplished the great
task in less than half the time allotted
them, and won from all the civilized worlc
the verdict of having effected the might
lest work of the age
By the light of history of the past quar-
ter of century it viii be disclosed tina
the men were prophetic who declared
upon the floor of Congress that the Terri
tories and States of the Union upon til,
Pacific would never be truly annexed unit
rail mail route bound them to the East
and that the Government could assume NJ
obligations, however generous or bounte
Gus, that would not be compensated to tn,
uttermost by the natural benefits to flow
from such construction.
Let the people of this day glance back
ward over the history of the sos and '60s
as related to this coast, and they will real
ize how fully and amply the marvelousl,
prophetic declarations of the friends of tn
transcontinental railroads have been full
filled, and how, in severely practica
sense, and freed from every particle of sen
tlment, these great routes have been in
struments of progress, civilization and de
velopment; agencies reaching out ant
touching with benign influence art, trade
industry, commerce, production and ma
tional unity.