The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-01-19
There Are Millions in the Scheme
for Huntington.
CITIZENS AT LAST FULLY AROUSED.
In Earnest Letter Of Protest TO Every
Member Of Congress Starts
East To-Day.

tives and Senate, and is self-explanatory:
Sir: On Saturday evening last on two days
notice, during one of the heaviest storms of the
season, a public meeting was held at Metro
politan Temple in this city, which was
Crammed 10 its utmost capacity and from
which not less than $4,000 people were turned
AWAY, to protest, among other things, against
any funding of the Pacific Railway debts.
The strength and unanimity of sentiment,
the earnest determination OF the audience
which represented every shade OF politics, even
the press could not adequately describe. No
counterpart to the scene has ever occurred in
this CITY since 1861 when, at the intersection
Of Market and Montgomery streets, twenty
three thousand men resolved to maintain the
union OF the States with their lives, their for
tunes and tlreir sacred honor. At this meeting,
without dissenting. voice, the following reso-
lutions were adopted:
"RcsoIucd, BY the people of San Francisco, in
mass-meeting assembled, that we enter our
solemn protest against the passage of any fund
ing bill whatever, and hereby appeal TO the
Speaker of the House 10 protect us by not giving
a special order for day 10 the Pacific Railroad
Committee, and further
'R6soiued. That we appeal TO each individual
member OF The House Of Representatives not to
overlook the 200 600 protests against the bill
by the inhabitants OF the Pacific Coast"
In order 10 carry into effect the objects OF the
meeting permanent committee OF citizens
was appointed with full authority to act.
This committee has instructed the under
signed TO lay before you in proper manner our
peoples objections to the funding Of the rail-
road debts. In their opposition to funding
said debts, notwithstanding what may be said
TO the contrary, the people OF the Paclc Coast
are practically unanimous
Our railroad communication with other
parts OF the Union has been and is controlled
by Jour men and their heirs, whose united
fortunes in 1862 did not exceed half q MIL
lion. These men were lavishly endowed by
the people. in their municipal, State and Fed
eTal capacities, with land and money aggre-
eating quadruple the cost OF building the said
roads; they have drained our people of every
dollar that they could by excessive freights and
fares; they have. through the power thus
given them, lntTenched their own monopoly
and established and made other monOpOlieS
subservient TO their interests; they have
discouraged the development OF the
State, and by the addition of extor-
ton and fraud have accumulated the
unprecedented sum OF fully two hundred mil
lions OF capital This fortune, impossible OF
accumulation by honorable means, is the ag-
gregation OF donations, subsidies and loans
and the fraudulent division and absorption of
the earnings and profits of the producing mass.
By means OF the power thus secured they have
succeeded in excluding all competition and
have maintained powerful lObbieS at every
session OF the Legislature of the State and the
nation, prepared 10 buy wherever honor was
Tor sale and TO deceive where they could
not buy. They have, by the exercise OF such
power, held this State in a condition OF
strangulated subserviency. They now, through
their agentS,and conIederates, are seeking to
use the Senators and Representatives OF this
Congress to relieve them OF the payment of
their Just debts and obligations to the Govern
ment, and TO saddle the same on the people OF
the country with interest for from fifty to one
hundred years to come. This is but shifting
OF the obligation from the men who incurred
it and should pay 1t and the placing it as a
mortgage upon the labor OF our people and
their posteTity.
Against such action we do now most sol
EMMY protest as an outrage and wrong which
should not be perpetrated against q Tree and
independent people.
The case OF the Union Pacific Railroad Com
pany is not our province to discuss. The cir
cumStanceS surrounding il are different from
those attending the construction of the Cen
tral Pacific Railroad. We object to the combi-
nation OF the cases OF these two corporations,
the object Of which is to use any strength pos
seSsed by one to bolster the weakness OF the
other.
The Central Pacific Railroad is California
corporation. The creditors INCLUDING the
Government) are protected not only by princi-
pies ofequity, but by the individual liability
OF Its stockholders. 1t was built and COM
pleted by the Contract and Finance Company,
8 corporation composed of the same four men
who owned the road and who, at its completion
in 1869, divided no less than $4,000, 600
which should have gone to pay the debts of this
company. These men have been enabled to
dominate the people of the country, and have
used the means thus illegitimately obtained to
assist IN building up their enormous fortunes.
Out OF this money and the earnings of the
Central Pacific they have built the Southern
Pacific, its tributaries and its branches They
have stocked the same with the best OF the roll
ing stock belonging 10 the Central Pacific and
resoTted to every means possible to leave the
last named companyina bankrupt and crippled
cOnuluon. mere IS not an honest and able
lawyer or judge in the United States that does
not know that, independent of the liability of
stockholders under our California law, such
transactions as these can be reached through
established processes of euuitv and Mr. Hunt
ington and the representatives. of his deceased
associates be forced to disgorge their plumber
No one who investigates the question can fail
20 ascertain that the object of these funding
bills is to cOndOne personal responsibility 10
legally sanction the Wrecking of the Central
r.7rE 80 Doll
TO Mr.. Huntington the accumuls ton which he
actually uses to debauch politics and law
In this State, with all our long submission to
this IntOlerable tyranny, we feel that we are
Americans III fact and in sentiment and were
born with all the rights supposed to be secured
by the Declaration of independence and by our
Federal and State constitutions. If we are to
be sold to Mr.. Huntington and his associates,
let the bill of sale be officially promulgated
not through such q funding bill as has been
proposed, but directly and positively. We have
built up and sought to develop q great State,
integral part of the American Union
We have contributed many hundreds OF mill
ions to the wealth OF the nation.
We have largely. though unwillingly, done
the work out OF which the private fortunes of
these railroad millionaires, who now seek 10
extinguish even the equity of redemption,
with men and with money when it needed
help. Why should we be reduced to utter
slavery and to comparative poverty through
funding bill passed by the representatives OF
our sister States which, while they cannot be
exempted from the generalization which such
condition reveals, viii scarcely feel the
financial burden they impose on us.
It is full time that California should be
treated, not as a dependent province, but as an
American State, and that criminahty, hedged
only by money and fraud, should not exercise
an overpowering influence over US in our ma
tional councils. If the debts of looted cor
poration are to be funded then let the debts of
honest citizens be also aggregated and funded
for fifty or q hundred years at per cent per
annum. Any citizen ought to be equal to q
railroad corporation or to plutocrat.
We ask for nothing but common Integrity
and common justice, and we hope that our de-
mendS may not be unheeded. The issue is
squarely presented. Will you, sir, take the
side Of the people, for whom we address You,
rather than indorsc the men who are their bit
terest enemies, and who to-day constitute the
most corrupting element in this land dedicated
by our fathers and by those who died to save it
10 nonor, to truth, to justice, TO all that upjftS
ana develops the human race?
ODIlge US by answering this question and by
determining in your own mind, both from
business and patriotic standpoints, how the |
balance should be held between Mr.. Hunting
Ton ana the people of the State OF California.
with entire respect, we remain, sir.
JAMES II. BARRY,
CHARLES G. TERRILL,
JOHN NJ. REYNOLDS,
Committee on Funding Bill.
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Turk Street SinpIa Track