Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-01-20
The President and the Pacific Roads.


the reports of the Commissioners APP
pointed to investigate the Pacific roads,
takes the reasonable view which the coun-
try has learned to expect of Mr.. Cleveland
in all matters which concern the business
of the Government.
Security for the public money is held to
be consistent with the preservation of the
property, and all such wasteful and doubt
full, and probabl corrupting expedients, as
a Federal Receivership for the roads, or
their seizure out and out by the Govern
ment, are excluded from the field of discus
sion as deserving no consideration.
. The measure recommended by the ma
jority report is Endorsed to Congress, and
that body is reminded of its jurisdiction
over important collateral issues. The
policy of personal reprisal is not encour-
aged, because it has no relation to bust
ness adjustment. When it is considered,
if at all, it will not be reached along the
lines of Eastern prejudice against the in
dependent California capital that has de-
veloped our system of railways, and orer-
ates them without reference to the stock
iobbing uses of Eastern manipulators.
When the matters are up for adjustment,
it will not be forgotten that the managers
of the Union Pacific were trustees to an
express trust, confded to them by the Gov
eminent, and that their construction ex-
penditures excited the wrath of the
country, because they uselessly overran the
estimates of the Government engineer.
The difficulties of construction were on
the Central Pacific, a California corpora
ton, with no relation of trJlsteeship to the
Government at all. Its relation was that
of contract, and 1t was bound to keep its
part thereof, as was the Government on its
side obligated to keep its part. If there
have been failures on one side, the Courts
can say whether the equities have not been
balanced by failures on the other.
To put on trial now these events that
are quarter century gone by, is like the
arraignment of Give and Warren Hast
ings before an English tribunal for deeds
done in India during the preceding gen.
Grafton, which, at the time they were done,
were necessary for the conquest by Great
Britain of her Asiatic empire. Accepting
the conquest, it was proposed to punish the
conquerorS and their methods.
Had England been reminded that before
entering austere judgment against the vic
tor of piassey and the conqucrur of Hyder
Ali she should restore India to the state
in which they found it, withdraw her com-
merce and her armies, and so undertake re-
conquest by meeting Asiatic craft with
psalm-singing, the public opinion of her
people would not have rallied so slowly
against the fervor of Burke and the craft
Of Sir Philip Francis.
So now it is doubtful whether any pro-
position outside the strict line along which
the Government must seek security for its
loans to the Pacific roads would be ap-
proved, if it carried with it the oblitera-
ton of all that has been created by those
enterprises. Great structures are suspended
over chasms by throwing one wire across
and weaving upon it cable So great
commercial and industrial consequences
have been woven upon the completion of
these roads, which had been for thirty
years the dream of craftsmanship in this
country before the work was undertaken.
Since then for nearly thirty years more
the country has been drummed to action
upon controversies rooted in the accom-
plishment of Il work which in its begin
ming was scotied at as impossible, while its
projectors were hooted as cranks.
The President says, well and wisely
1t Is about time that the troublesome
complications surrounding this entire sub
ject, which has been transmitted TO us as a
legacy from former days, should be adj
justed and settled. No one, | think, ex-
poets that the railroad companies will be
able to pay their immense Indebtedness to
the Government at its maturity. ANY
proceeding or arrangement that would re-
suit now or any other time in putting these
roads, or any portion of them, in posses
sion or control of the Government is. in
my opinion, to be rejected, certainly as
long as there is the least chance for in
identification through any other means. |
suppose we are hardly justified in indulg-
ing the irritation and indignation naturally
arising from the contemplation of mall
feasance to such an extent as to lead to the
useless destruction of these roads or of the
loss OF the advances made by the Govern
ment"
That is the common sense of it. and it
means that finality is in sight, in which
the property in controversy will be saved
from destruction, the Government will
avoid the dangerous experiment of under
taking the operation of railroads, and the
second maturity of the debt will be pro-
Jected far enough in the future to secure
Its payment out of the development of the
hitherto undeveloped country through
which the road runs.
This is all that reasonable people expect
and is all that the managers of the roads
should consider feasible.