The San Francisco call., 1897-12-23
A SIN OF OMISSION.

| Promise" the State Board of Trade has issued
~ volume of 10y pages, handsomely printed
well written and attractivey illustrated. 1t purports
to contain description of the State with general
account OF its resources industries and advantages OF
climate, soil and geographical situation 1t gives
with considerable ullness record of the develop
ment OF California enterprise, but it omits the
struction of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Val
ley Railroad
The omission to have been intentionally
made The work contains chapter "Transpor-
tatlon IN California written by w. G.. Curtis, who
certainly is aware of the existence of the Valley
Road, but whose article ignores it. This chapter
occupies FIVE pages 1t is illustrated with picture
and full page diagram 1t is devoted, however,
almost exclusively to the Southern Pacific system.
The only reference to other roads is a brief para
graph to the effect that California has twenty nine
operating railway companies and thar the aggregate
mileage OF railways operated independently of in
| competition with the Southern Pacific Company was
on June 80, 1896, 1850 miles.
The reason why the construction and operation of
the Valley Road omitted from the article is
made clear by the article itself The people of Cali
tornia will be surprised to learn that the chapter on
transportation in this pamphlet issued in the name
OF the State Board of Trade, written to show
the transportation facilities of the State or to record
what has been done in the way of improving them.
or to point out the opportunities for investment in
California railway enterprises but to prove as the
author says in conclusion, that the transportation
facilities of the State are not only adequate to but
in of the commercial and industrial neces-
sites of the people"
An argument designed to prove that the Southern
Pacific Company furnishes railway facilities to
the people of California in excess of their needs
could not admit record of the fact that the people
OF California have found it necessary 10 construct
competing railroad in the San Joaquin and are now
extending it to San Francisco. Hence we infer that
the omission of any mention of the Valley Road was
Intentionally done.
The right of the Southern Pacific Company or of
private citizen to issue pamphlet designed to
spread throughout the country the idea
that transportation facilities in California are
in excess OF the needs of the State
and that additional railways are required
cannot be disputed. This is a free country. and
man may speak write the thing he will The State
Board OF Trade however, has no right to do this
thing. The board is supposed to represent the busi-
ness interests OF the State It's officials violate public
confidence when they send forth pamphlet which
gravey misrepresents the conditions of business and
is calculated to seriously njure great enterprise
Fortunately the bonds of the Valley Road and the
stock of the company have been all taken by home
people who know the truth, and consequently no i'm
mediate harm will be done by the circulation of this
peculiar document of the State Board of Trade If
however, it had been necessary to place the bonds
in the East or in Europe, the circulation of such
pamphlet by such authority would have been great
damage to the Valley Road and to the State
1t is time for the officials of the State Board of
Trade to remember that there is something in Cali
fornia besides the Southern Pacific Company The
board cannot afford to ignore great enterprises in
order that some individual may advance an argu-
ment which the very existence OF those enter
prises refutes. The Valley Road is here, and the
State Board of Trade must do justice to it or lose
the confidence OF the public