The San Francisco call., 1896-02-15
A BIASED ARGUMENT.

In the San Francisco Post Colonel John
P. Irish makes an elaborate argument
against the foreclosure of the Government
mortgage on the aided roads. The burden
of it is shat if the mortgage should be fore
closed, and if the Gould and Vanderbilt
interests should secure the road at the
sale, and that if the amount which they
pay shall be $S4, 4,000,0 600 less than the total
debt on the two roads, the Government
will be making them a present of
$S4 000, 600, and they will move the
distr ibuting center of the roads from San
Francisco to the Atlantic coast. Hence
the Central Pacific can no longer charge
the business men OF Ogden for freight
shipped from Boston rate equal to the
charge from Boston to San Francisco and
from San Francisco to Ogden, and hence
San Francisco would lose the benefit of
the extra charge.
Those are not the words in which
Colonel Irish states his argument, but
they are the ones in which it is fairly ex-
pressible. But the colonel does gravely
assume that the roads will be sold at 40
per cent of their debt to the Government,
or very nearly that amount; that the
Gould and Vanderbilt interests will buy
them; that these interests will transfer
the distributing point from the Pacific to
the Atlantic, and that the Southern Pa
ciic will no longer have distributing
system in California.
Not a single one of these premises is
a certainty, and some are clearly in
correct. Even if they all should prove
true (Which would be next to a miracle),
in exchange for the supposed evils which
| their occurrence would produce we should
witness an absolute destruction of the
Southern Pacific Company's monopoly, a
breaking of the power which the Pacific
Mail and the Southern Pacific have created
by reason of the Pacific Mails compact
with the Panama Railway, an equitable
rate for points between San Francisco and
the Missouri River land this would tend
to populate that region and increase the
market for California products), a policy
OF low rates between the supposed Allan.
tic distributing center and California in
order to advance the interests of that i'm
aginary center, and IN the natural course
of events competing line of steamers be-
tween California and the Orient as an
adjunct to the new trunk line.
This is merely applying Colonel Irish 8
OWL argument to the case. 1t IS evident
that if the Vanderbilt and Gould interests
have the smallest chance of receiving a
present of SS4, 900, 600 from the Govern
ment and of enjoying the trunk-line bene-
| fits indicated by Colonel Irish, they will
have active competition in the bidding
| that this bidding will destroy the prospect
of such a gift, and that therefore the argu-
ment reduces itself to an absurdity. The
Gould and Vanderbilt interests are not the
only ones in the country.
! San Francisco does not receive the
benefit arising from adding the local rate
to the overland rate in distributing arti-
cles of Eastern manufacture to the country
tributary to it. That benefit goes to the
Southern Pacific Company alone. The
policy manifestly retards the development
OF the tributary country, and that Injuries
San Francisco. This City can be nothing
but reflex of the conditions which sup
port it. The future greatness of San Fran
cisco depends on the development of it's
tributary country, and the one thing that
prohibits that development to-day is the
high charges of the Southern Pacific in the
exercise of its power as mon opoly. The
passing of the Union and Central Pacific
| rOaCS into competing handS wonld destroy
that power and encourage interior develop
ment. That would mean the progress OF
San Francisco.
1t was unfortunate for Colonel Irish g
argument that 1t should include the asser-
tion that the funding bill would secure
the Government the whole debt, dollar
for dollar. That is so clearly plea for
perpetuatlon of a monopoly which fore
closure would crush that it need not be
seriously considered.