Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-24
TIME AND FACT JUSTIFYING THE
RAILROAD PEOPLE.

TIME AND FACT JUSTIFYING THE
RAILROAD PEOPLE.
When it was claimed by the Central
Pacific Railroad Company that it had sew
eral equitable claims against the United
States Government which it proposed to
present, the suggestion was received by
certain of the press and certain of the po-
htical leaders, with a shout of derision
For so many years the demagogue and
blackmailer had rung the changes upon
the charges that the transcontinental lines
had robbed the Government, extorted
from the people, and pursued policy of
antagonism to all the material interests of
the country, that it had come to be ac-
cepted by those who did not take the pains
to investigate, that all these things were
true. Whoever dared to suggest that the
railroad companies had some equitable
rights. deserving of protection was derided
and abused The railway corporations
were held up to view as monsters of in
justice, whose sins against the Govern
ment and the people were so heinous and
numerous as to be beyond possibility of
expiation.
1t requires no great exercise of memory
to recall the period only a little while
passed into unrecoverabIe time, when the
chief claim TO patriotic devotion to the
peoples interests was measured by the de-
gree of vituperative heat in which one
could indulge against the Central Pacific
Railroad builders in their corporate and
their individual capacities. The
idea Of the railroad company
having any claim against the
Federal Government was declared to be
preposterous; the statement that the COM
pany had discharged its obligations to the
United States as they fell due, and had
complied with every line and letter of its
contract with the Government, was always
received with the fiat statement that the
claim was false, and an evidence of the
wholly corrupt character of the corporation.
What has now developed as fact? The
Pacific Railway Commission of Investiga-
ton, never suspected of even slight
friendliness to the railways, reports TO
Congress that it finds the saving to the
Government in transportation charges, by
reason of the completion of the Central
Pacific Railroad Company seven years
earlier than called for in the contract, was
for freight, troops and mails, to July / 4,
1876, S47, 763,17S. This is absolute saving
for period in which, had the road not
been built, the Government would have
been driven to employ the old methods of
carriage. But the saving if calculated to
January /, 1886, was found by the Com
mission to be the enormous sum of $780,
347,741 25.
Another claim of the Central Pacific
Railroad that, in the days of insane anti
railroad demagogy, was treated with scorn
was that it kept every part and parcel of
its contract with the Government. Now
the Commission referred to reports that
that this claim always was and is literally
true. One Of the most vicious and danger
o1s charges preferred against the corpora
ton, was that it diverted traffic from the
aided lines to its unaided lines, to
the injury of the earning capacity
of the main line. But the Com.
mission reports that wherever this was
done "the controlling motive was public
convenience and public advantage, and it
was not done with the intention to reduce
net earnings applicable to the percentage
due to the United States"
Still another of the old time. much
mouthed, loudly preached charges against
the company was that it declined or neg
lected to take its patents to lands, in order
to escape taxation. But the testimony
before the Commission showed it to be a
matter OF record that the response of the
company was always true that it had not
so delayed or declined, but the failure
always was that Of the United States Land
Office to furnish patents as fast as applied
for. The subject might be pursued at
great length and other examples given of
the establishment Of the truth through
the cooling processes of time, and the ex-
posture of the misconception, hollowness,
and vicious character of the assaults once
made upon the railroad company, but
which will never be renewed. They served
in their time to involve it in contention
with Legislatures, put it upon the de-
fensive against political assailants, and
force it 10 neglect its legitimate business
to do battle vita misimormed, stub
born but honestly actuated men upon the
one hand, and corrupt and designing men
apon the other.