Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-08-21
Testimony OF Worth.

Testimony OF Worth.
rs F Bulletinl
The death of Charles Croker is the re-
moval Of the second of that remarkable
group of men associated with the building
of the first railroad across the Continent.
Few men have surmounted greater obsta-
cles or fought their way to victory with
greater success. Mr.. Crocker was an ex-
ecutive man. He not only had the head
to plan great enterprises, but he had the
will and the physical power to carry them
out. To use a Western phrase, che got
there" and generally by the shortest road.
He never went round when he knew a
more direct way. He executed great con-
tracts, requiring at one time a force Of
10000 men. He knew the details of the
vast operations that enlisted his enter
prise. He knew men, and how to deal
with them. He had no armchair theories:
but having once determined that piece
of work should be done, he went forth to
execute the task. He was at the COM
mencement the supervising builder of rail
roads. Other men put in brains and
capital. He put in these and all his phys
ical energies, supplemented by great ex-
ecutive ability. He executed where
Others planned, if his own judgment con-
CURED IN the wisdom of the plan. He
had the well-balanced business Judgment
which directed all his energies.
Few men have undertaken such various
and diverse enterprises and made as few
mistakes. 1t was not mere luck that
brought him on his way from one success
to another. 1t was the sagacity of the
man, prodigious force and power of exc
cution which commanded success. This
force gave him directness and degree of
bluntness in his ordinary address. But he
was generous-hearted man, and his sym
pathies could be touched quickly. He had
little patience with men who were dila-
tory and put off to another day what
ought to be done to-day. He demanded
Of no one more work than he accom-
plished and there were very few who
could keep even pace with him. He was
a prodigious worker, assuming great tasks,
which he preferred to accomplish rather
than commit them to others. His great
fortune did not separate him from his fell
lows He never forgot the day when a
shilling was more to him than ten thousand
dollars added to or taken from his millions.
This did not make him arrogant or harden
his heart toward his fellow-men.
1t was characteristic Of his generous i'm
pulses and quickness of sympathy that
struction of his fine building on Bush
street, he telegraphed back an order that
5000 each should be given to the families
of the two firemen who had lost their lives
in fighting the fire. When the conserva-
tory at the Golden Gate Park burned
down, he not only furnished the money to
replace the lost structure, but he sent his
own architect and workmen to rebuild it.
This executive force was dominant every
where. When he planned for himself he
rarely failed to come out at the very point
he had designated.
For many years he was engaged in a
series of successful enterprises, apart from
the railroad. He bought and sold large
tracts of land. He erected business houses
His great irrigation works, completed in
MERGED county, are the most extensive
ever undertaken by private individuals in
this country. His work was not only good
for himself, but it was good for the public
He, with his associates, undertook to make
a vast tract of arid land fertile and pro-
ductive. He succeeded.
Few men have secured 80 great fortune
and made so few personal enemies. He
had great fund of animal spirits. He
was fond of joke and good story, and
aside from business, he Is the most COM
panionable of men. 1t was said of him,
because of the freshness and overflow of
his spirits, that he was always boy. But
this buoyancy gave him great power. He
carried heavy loads. But he never let the
load crush him. He put great deal into
life, but he got great deal out of it. He
took the good things of life for the day
and for every day. Had he lived another
score of years he would have gone on
planning and executing in the old way.
Such men do not rest. They find their
enjoyment in hard work. There is greater
JOY in the success of well-executed plan
than in many idle hours.
The builders, the men who execute vast
enterprises which advance the material
development, are the great men in new
commonwealths. There never has been
too many of them. They go before the
timid, the conservative and the hating.
They hew broad pathways to success.
They quicken other men. There are in
this State hundreds of opportunities for
the employment of capital in this material
development. Much of this capital is
idle 1t is waiting for bold men to pave
new avenues to success. The original six
men associated in the construction of the
Central Pacific Railroad went before all
other men in that great enterprise. They
deserved success, and they won it. 1t did
not come from sheer luck. but from one
of the boldest and clearest-sighted enter
prises ever planned in this country. They
worked in pioneer days. No other rail-
road company ever encountered such OBJ
stacles in the way of construction. Had
the men failed, only the common mis-
fortune would have overtaken them. But
they were not common men. 1t is prob
able that each one of them would have
been heard of again in some other enter
prise.
Charles Croker put the best part of his
life into the construction of the great sys-
tenn of railroads now operated within and
beyond the State. He cast up highways in
the wilderness Over, substantially, a
route which he had travelled with an OK
team in hundred days, he went in his
own triumphal car in four days. He saw
that his work, in this respect, with all dis
counts and imperfections, was good. AS
men count results, that was a successful
life. The intense man, wrought up and
nerved for so great work, lived long in