The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1894-08-30
SHALL THE GOVERNMENT OWN
AND OPERATE THE CENTRAL AND
UNION PACIFIC RAILROADS.

The San Francisco Examiner has very
theoretically exploited public opinion on
the general question as to the extension
of the time for the payment of the debt
TO become due the Government grow
ing out of aid extended in the construe-
ton of a line of railroad and telegraph
from the Missouri River to the Pacific
Ocean.
The Examiner claims to have secured
over $50, 900 names to protest against the
passage of the Reilly Funding Act, or in
general effect. against the passage of any
law extending the time for the payment
of the debt to become due by the Pacific
Railroads to the Government. Making
due allowance for padding in petition of
this magnitude, there is still ample
ground for the opinion that the ECdnl-
ane7sS effort has resulted in manifesto
ton of public opinion decidedly against
the extension of the time for the payment
as proposed in the Reilly funding bill, or
any other bill, and logically in favor of
the operation of the line connecting the
Missouri River with the Pacific Ocean by
the Government itself
The fact that public opinion on the Pa
cifc Coast is overwhelmingly in favor of
the proposition placed before the people
by the Examiner and responded to in the
manner already indicated, does not
change the real considerations underly
ing the proposition. Popular opinion
may be uniformed, and therefore wrong.
Principles are not changed by the views
of men concerning them, and it is the
testimony of all history that the truth is
as often with the minority as with the
majority.
After due credit is made for the amount
recovered by the Government under the
operation of the Thurman funding bill,
the Central and Union Pacific Railroad
Companies will owe to the Government at
least $50, 100000. For the security of the
payment of this, the Government holds
a lien subordinate to that of the first
mortgage upon the roads in question.
The amount of this first mortgage, which
is an insuperabIe barrier to Government
ownership of these roads, is $50, OO0, 900.
This mortgage must be discharged and
the bonds retired, or what would be its
equivalent, Government bonds issued to
the amount of $50, 600, 600. in the place of
that now resting on the road. Thus the
Government will have invested in the
roads sl9O, OOO, 900.
The Examiner and its petitioners pro-
pose that the people OF the United States
shall put $50, 000.O0 into single line of
railroad connecting Omaha with Sacra-
mento, or, if the Western Pacific Rail-
road is included, connecting Omaha with
San Jose.
There are seven lines of railroad con-
meeting the Atlantic with the Pacific sea-
boards of the country, able to give
through bills of lading. These are the
Canadian Pacific, the Northern Pacific,
the Great Northern, the Union Pacific by
its Oregon Short Line and Oregon Nayi-
CATION Company, the Central and Union
Pacific, from Omaha to Sacramento. the
Atchison. Topeka and Santa Fe, and the
Sunset Route, from New Orleans to San
Francisco. These lines are competing
practically for the same through BUSH
ness. Their local business may exist in
dependent Of each other; but each and all
of them comprise mileage across desert
and unproductive country. and depend
for profit solely on through business.
The proposition that the Government
shall invest SI90. O0O, 900 to secure owner
ship of one of these competing lines OBJ
viously means that the people of the
United States shall operate road with
out regard to its earning capacity as
regulator Of freight charges on all seven
lines.
Its folly to assert that an extension of
time for the payment of the debts owed
by the roads to the Government would
impose a burden upon the industries of
the Pacific Coast. This one line of seven
Goes not possess the power to determire