Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-01-06

to pay his way at school. And it is told
that the neighbors put so much work on the
shy boy that he had but little time left for
study. Strange what remarkable group
of men, or rather boys he was born among
To say nothing Of soldiers, senators and SO
on, there were Z. Il. Barnum, Brigham
Young, Joseph Smith and such like strong
natures. No, don't dcspise Barnum. A
man who has made millions of little ones
happy is neither knave nor fool. Brigham
Young? He built acity in the heart of 1.-THE
Great American Desert" as it was then
called, that is & marvel, and ProphetSmit
furnished the material.
This man of iron has probably built mort
miles of railroad than any other 10 men liv
ing or dead. Yet who ever heard of him OF
about him as long rs he could hide himself
and his marvellous works behind others? II
was only when Hopkins, Crocker and Stan
ford fell from the front and left him stand
ing all alone That We began to see and heed
1.-THE power behind the throne"
If he had done nothing else but bore that
hole through the Sierra Nevadas and cross
the sands of the continent, he would have hac
fame enough and fortune enough, and ii
is Il fact that the other three great builders
wanted to stop there and then, but the
greater force of this one man bore down al
others, and he began building from Sacra
mento to the sea at once and from Arizona
to Oregon.
Have you any idea what that first roat
cost? The people laughed; the press OF til;
Pacific coast jeered, derided howled ant
being disappointed in their prophecies art
still bowling, jcering, deriding. Hunting
h nf,tb p ms al iSf
of the world. Croker, at the head of con
struction, kept right with his men in tbs
mountains day and night. He, too, hat.
been Il day laborer in his youth, and ht
knew what toll was. He once told me thai;
for wears he toiled so hard and necessarily
that he scarcely had time or strength t,
throw off his clothes ut night, but he fel
on his blankets and slept rs he fell. WhcL
his tunnel was half through the mountains.
he tapped it from the top, drew up his
thousand tons OF track and ran the rail-
away down the mountains in grooves o.
wood.
The other day q lady writer came to me.
as they come to all scTibes, | reckon, anc
begged me to tell her how to make somt
money with her pen. She had iine articl,
on Huntington; bette than | could do
dainty, delicate and so sensible that ever
the most shy man could not be afraid of it.
Take that to Huntington or to his wife.
never saw and scarce know him, said /.
'and get his permission to publish it as au-
thentic; then will give you a letter to .
magazine"
She came back in Il few days.
"Well?"
swell, | saw Huntington, and got $50. .
"Fifty dollarsi Geel Where do you want
to publish itY"
''Publish It'll He gave me the $50 to burn
it up,'
But this young woman had dug up a fact
that |. as n Californian, don't care to havt
burned. 10 make certain of it went to o
certain man. said, Look here, Hunting
ton is the richest man in the United States
and closest, ehy'
"Sir. he may not be the richest, but he is
the freest handed of all the many free
handed men in California. Why, sir, his
benefactions are like a brook-they so on
forever"
And then this certain man, who has
charge of his charities, wheeled about in
his indignation at what had said and tooS
a, hour and "a half to tell what he had done
oaly the last month.
"Thank you" l said; lust the thing
wantedI'
WHAT What do you mean'"
"Well, it won't hurt Huntington to pub
lish it,
Hurt? It will enrage him. and it will
ruin me, for he knows that l am the only
one who could know all this, and he is q
man who literally viii not let his one hand
know what the other does" So am ST
fenced on that.
The one other notable thing about this
great Californian that distinguishes him
from all the railroad builders on the Other
sideof the Rocky mountains, living or dead
is the fact that he is, was and ever has beer
fror, the first a builder from the ground
up"
Other men bought bankrupt or wrecked
roads. You may put your finger on some
who even made profession of wreckine
roads in order to hny them and build uI
their fortunes on the ruins of others. But
C. L. Huntington, if you except his road
from Newport News to Huntington, KY.
took his ground fresh from the hand OF God
and turned the grass, roots and daisies
where the buiTaloand other wild beasts had
fed only the day before. He has conquered
and redeemed more land from the desert
and savagery than care TO estimate. lie Is
literally an Alexander the Great; greater
than Alexander the Great, for when ne
reached the sea at the Golden Gate ne did
not sit down and weep. but right and left
and up and down the Pacific STA banks he
built and built and still is building. But
he is a wise man. knows he is human, and
hear he is coming now al last TO SIT down
with us at the Golden Gate and rest. May
be come soon and resi- long
JOAQUIN MILLER.