The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-02-01

PIE VINO fear TO ayow their ownership lest they be
! neId responsible for Its debts? Such however, is
| the fact. The original owners have, with ex-
ception sold out their holdings persons residing
ABROAD, VINO Withhold their shares from transfer
and decline to register their ownership lest they
made responsible for the debts. The managers
Keep control OF the organization by the use OF
! proxies taken years ago from those in whose
names the shares then stood.
The road is leased TO the Southern Pacific for
] three or four generations and that concern pays
$4,000 year rent expressly to enable the great
Central Pacific Company to keep up its corporate
organization. e., pay salaries keep an office and
maintain sembiRnce of animation sufficient 10
avoid forfeiture of its charter for non-nser
In the present hands it is not only bankrupt,
put fraudulent bankrupt for it has aenated all
us means to It's own directors in fraud of its cred
ltors. This is the concern with which committees
OF Congress condescend to treat and whose assur-
ances they are expected TO accept, through self
appointed agents, as though 1t living
ganization and its statements and promises of any
value The lease referred to went into effect jan
uary l, 1884, and Is printed in the annual report
of the Southern Pacific Company for the year
1898, at pages 103 and 104.
THE CASE SUMMARIZED.
The proposition to Congress of the Central Pa
cine Railroad Company, personlfed by Mr.. Hunt
ington, may be condensed as follows;
Nv hen this corporation was formed the four
acquired substantially all its stock were not worth
more than half q million. II period of civil
Tor military and mail facilities. The patriotism of
the people was intense. The four awaited them
selves OF the opportunity, and the railroad was
ally partnership, and afterward corporation
named the Contract and Finance Company, which
was succeeded for other enterprises by the West
ern Development Company and the Pacific I'm
provement Company. and all these corporations,
directed by the same men, dealt with each other.
The upshot of the business that. largely out OF
the securities which the Government and other
bondholders nomnally held, while the manage
ment WAS vested in their debtor and by innumer-
able transfers and conversions OF the property and
the income of the Central Pacific the Southern
Pacific Railroad to which the business of the orig
inal corporation converted as rapidly as pos
sible, the California and Oregon Railroad and nu-
tod a nd
acquired. and the four gentlemen referred to and
their heirs and devisees have accumulated prop
erty TO the value OF at least hundred and fifty
millions.
HUNrINeToN's INDUSTRIOUS PROPOSAL.
"Now, through these proceedings, the chief
sets of the Central Pacific have passed to other
companies and 10 private ownership. That
poration in its present condition is unable TO pro-
vide for or pay its debts /, T.. r Huntington, the
survivor of the four and representing the Central
Pacific Railroad Company, which viii cease to ex-
list in 1911, ask you, the Congress of the United
States, 10 refund its Indebtedness for 100 years.
establish per cent per annum the rate OF inter
versions to which have alluded, to forego every
legal remedy the Government now possesses, and
TO give me tn power to collect so much Of the re-
funded debt as / or my spccessors may choose to
pay, primarily from the producers of the Pacific
Coast, and secondarily, from the people Of the
This, in fairness and justice, is the substance OF
the proposal Mr.. Huntington makes 10 Congress,
thus invoking the legislative arm of the Govern
ment TO thwart and paralyze the executive and
judiciary, and, speaking of him in his representa-
him and his Accommodations with Notifications that
would defy the constitution and the laws and every
principle OF justice and of right.
The mere fact that such monstrous demand
can be boldly and even defiantly made is such d
commentary upon the times as no words coulu EN-,
phasize. II the public response, though filtered
through conventions OF solid and d+liberatfve
character, is thick with indignation, and some
times couched in language unusually direct and
severe it is no ground for surprise, and scarcely
for criticism. If an average citizen perfumes him
self commits larceny embeZzlement he is
tried and punished and there is no application to
legislative body TO condone his crime or to OBJ
literate the facts he has created. Under consti-
tutional government, resting upon law and order,
depending upon equality of right among free siti-
Zens, and supposed to be quickly and effectively
moved by the enlightened opinions Of an educated
constituency, it would be indeed surprising if the
people should tamely ana frigidly accept such
false, boundless and oppressive assumptions and
pretenses constitute this entire appeal of Mr.
Huntington and the Central Pacific Railroad
Company.
THE LAW SUFFICIENT AS 1T Is.
The whole issue about the railroad debts is now
covered by the constitution the Federal statutes
and we-estabshed legal principle The solution
of the question demands only the faithful appIica-
ton of the law to indubtabe facts. 1t is the duty
OF the Executive Department of the Government
10 set the Judicial Department in motion The
attitude OF our people is that the existing law
preserve the rights and interests of the Govern
ment and its constituents. If the manipulators of
railroads, in The act OF managing the security, have
the greater part of its value, then they and the
estates OF those deceased are trustees Let the
closed within the broad and well-defned rules of
equity.
THE ROAD AN ORDINARY DEBTOR.
The railroads should be treated like other
debtors Probably your constituents, at least those
among them whose covetousness transcends their
patriotism, would like to have their debts
funded by paternab Congress at 2 per cent per
annum, while the Government borrows money
keep up It's reserve fund at double that rate OF in
terest. Suppose that proposition was before you.
how promptly you would defeat it. Why should
Mr.. Huntington and the special interests he repre-
CantG no md no M Anna TIR nan
citizens? Why should you be asked to dIscrim-
mate for the benefit of acorporation against the
particular? If to the Southern Pacific Railroad
and private fortunes the security pledged to the
ceeds to the amount of $500, 10000 or more have
been traced let the deficiency be reached there,
and not made up by enforced contributions from
our capital and our labor.
But it is said that it is wrong to express or con-
vey suspicious of Congress and its committees. No
one on this coast has expressed or Implied those
suspicious. Like other attacks made upon indi-
viduals, they are a mere assumption OF the rail-
roads and diversions intended TO lnhnence your
action. We have referred only to the past and in
many places with Mr.. Huntington himself as our
authority. Is il not notorious that great reputa-
tons were furnished with association with railroad
frauds? And when Mr.. Huntington wrote conf
dentally to his friend and business associate,
David D. Cotton, did he not accuse the Congress
men of that day of corruption and express his
opinion OF them in language that would redden the
checks of any ordinary American? Why should
he be permitted now to maintain lobby and work
secretly and sel6shly at washington TO carry on
new schemes of plunder, in order to transfer his
burthens to the people and retain the money and
property to which the Government is entitled and
which it secure without an additional stroke OF
legislation?
PATTIsoN's ABLE REPORT.
Let any member of either branch Of Congress
read the report of Hon. Robert L. Pattison of Penn
sylvania a member of the United states Pacific
Railway Commission, in 1888, from which we have
already extracted and see how every phase OF the
present situation is anticipated. That report is
crammed with facts and figures, arrayed without
heat prejudice, and answering every possible
element OF the argument for refundng. and against
foreclosure If, September Is, 1871, the president
of the Central Pacific Railroad swore in the De-
partment OF the Interior that the paid-up stock of
that corporation was S54:263 100, when in truth it
only $3.50, 0OQ is that statement less false now
than it was then? If, December 81, 1886, the net
earnings of the Central Pacific had been
1924, 940.O13 ST. does that show any tendency
toward bankruptcy? If in POOLS subsidies re-
bates. ETC., the Central Pacific mas paid SO SS2
1893 81, is not the Government entitled to the
benefit of that fact with all the additions since? If
by fraudulent methods by contracting with them
selves, which is the worst fraud that trustees
penetrate, the manipulators OF the Central Pacific
had issued to themselves bonds and stock repre-
senting $82, 800, is this circumstance now to
be ignored: II Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins
and Croker through the Contract and Finance
Company the Western Development Company
and the Pacific Improvement Company, and 'ivi-
dends of the Central Pacific received in cash and
securities than $142,0O0,O00, and also
rentals aggregatnR $299l2,373 40, is this to
be condoned because Mr.. Huntington