The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-01
UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY, TO BE
SOLD TODAY, HAS A sTRNGE
HISTORY.
THE NATIONS MONEY UsE[
IN THE CONSTRUCTION, THE GOV
EMINENT MAKING A BIG
LOAN.
THE CREDIT MoBIL1ER SCANDAL
How the Big SwindIe Was Operated
Sale OPENS II New
Epoch.

In connection with the sale of the
Union Pacific road, the Chicago Trib-
une of yesterday says:
Torn and d.smembered by the eXcis-
! ion of many of its former valuable
branch and auxiliary lines, the Union
| Pacific railway will be disposed of to
/ the highest bidder in Omaha tomorrow
! with scant ceremony that i'll BELTS the
! transfer of a property of such great
magnitude. In this way will be closed
| a chapter of railway history extending
| over a period of thirtyfour years and
! lInapproachable in magnitude and d.
Versity of interests. At the same time
Will be written the opening events of
! a new epoch-the success or. failure Of
which is of vital Importance to the
country at large.
Every tie on the main line of the
! Union Pacific road between Omaha
and Ogden has it's story-a story of
wild adventure, of romance, political in
! trigue, shrewd financiering, featS OF
expert engineering. Fortunes were
+ made and lost in the construction and
operation of the road public men
! pushed up and down the ladder of
/ fame, and human life sacrificed. No
where in all the world is thee a coun-
terpart for the history of the Union
! Pacific railway, except, perhaps, in
that furnished by the attempted con-
struction of the Panama canal and the
! fall of De Lesseps.
But the record is not entirely a bad
one. 1t is enlivened il many places by
touches of pathos and humor, bright
incidents which tend to partly dispel
the cloud in which the property has
been enVelOped. Men have done good
deeds as well as bad ones while con-
nected with the Union Pacific COM
pany. There were times when the spir-
it of Christian love and charity ruled
triumphant over greed. and hate, and
! treachery, but these were few and far
between.
1t was George Francis Train, even
then eccentric, but full of daring and
resourceful power. who engineered the
construction of the road so that the
men interested made millions out of
the enterprise. The building of the
Union Pacific in 1863 80 was a sort of
/ government necessity. A railway from
! the Missouri to the Pacific coast was
needed for the development of the
country, TRANSFORMATION of supplies.
and easy handling Of troops. To Sc
cure 1t congress voted money aid rang
ing from $4,000 to $4,000 q mile, ac-
cording to the nature of the country
through which the road was to be
built. It is this loan now amounting
to about $53 000 900, which is to be paid
| by the purchasers of the property.
Even rs far back as 1863 the process
| Of Financing a road was pretty we'll
understood and there was an issue of
stock and first mortgage bonds aside
from the government loan. There was
no prospect that the road would he an
immediate paying investment, and the
men who got control of it sought to
recoup themselves by the profits of
construction. Just how to do tbs with
out raising a scandal they did not
know, smart as they were, and it was
while this part of the programme was
under discussion that George F. ancis
Train came into the DIAL. Mr. Train
suggested the formation of the Credit
MObilier, an ins tuition which, he said,
was shaped after the Cre1it FOncier of
France. He explained how this could
be made to serve rs q clearing house
to secure construction profits and the
plan was adopted. 1t served its pur-
pose, according to his orv, but finally
ended in a scandal which shook the
United States from one end to the
other.
SCHEME TO INCREASE MILEAGE.
From Omaha to Ogden, as the crow
flies, is a distance of 900 miles, but the
Union Pacific has a mileage of 1,05
miles between these cities. and most of
this extra stretch of rOadbed was Sc
cured by twisting the line about liz
an oxbow. Thus the government SUB
Sidy on an additional 100 miles or more
of trackage was secured. Clever en-
gineers have since declared that the
aggregate increase of mileage caused
by the topography of the country need
not exceed thirty-fOur miles, leaving
the plotters a handsome profit on the
I useless bends.
AS originally laid out Omaha was to
have been the Eastern terminus of the
Union Pacific road. For a time the
road was operated from that town, the
crossing of the Missouri being made at
st. Joe, to which point the Chicago
railways then ran. One day Mr. Train
suggested that there would be money
in making Council Bluffs the actual
end of the road, as it would enable the
insiders to build a bridge and collect
big tolls on all traffic crossing the riv-
er This required a supreme court de-
cision. 1t was secured. and later the
man influential in securing 1t was
made the counsel of the road, and came
into possession of a big block of the
stock Eastern lines constructed eX-
tensions to the Iowa town. the Union
Pacific Bridge company put 81 900 hn0
structure across the river, and the
business was managed so the income,
which was enormous, was of great
financial benefit to the promoters.
GOULD WAS OUTGENERALED.
For years after Jay Gould secured
control of the Union Pacific his init
mate friend and legal adviser was
Judge Sidney Dillon. In time the lat
ter became a heavy stakeholder in the
company, and he and Gould worked to-
gether in directing its affairs. At last
there came a time when they differed
over some trivial matteT-at least Jay
! Gould thought it was trivial, and gave
1T little attention. The wizard of Wall
street. had his way and was content.
Not so Dillon, who remained quiet,
sulking in defeat, and watching his OPP
portunity to get revenge. This was
presented when Charles Francis
Adams, of Boston, sought to get con-
troll of the property in 1884. Dillon
quietly sold his stock to the Boston
man, and the latter promptly got into
the saddle and rode over Gould, eject
ing his representatives, and taking
complete possession of the road. Mr..
Gould was astonished. He had given
little attention to purchases of stock
on the open market for the account of
the Adams party, we'll knowing they
could not secure majority interest so
long as Dillon stood FIN, and the idea
OF his cOnnQdnL anu leSdl auNISeI Sell
ing out never entered his mind But
Dillon did sell out, and Adams got the
stock, and it was years before Gould
could again get control of the road.
Inside corporations, formed for the
financial benefit of the men in charge
of the road, have always been fea-
ture of the Union Pacific system. Some
of these took the shape of branch
roads, in the construction of which
there was always a good, big profit
for the promoters. Instead of making