The San Francisco call., 1898-05-14
Trend of the Exanin atiOn Before Commissioner
 HeacOck.
Facts About the Rivalry Be- tween San Pedro and
 Santa Monica.
GOV. STANFORD CRITICISED
Legislation That Required "ExpIsin- ing" at Great Cost to the
 RailrOad.

, The examination of c. P. Huntington n was continued before Commissioner Hea- N cock yesterday, but as on former occa- siOns no attempt was made to draw from him any information regarding the man. ner in which a certain newspaper of this city levied blackmail upon the Southern Pacific Company for a number Of years, the thousands of dollars necessary to meet it's demands being charged on the books of the company to the item of contingent expenses.
 It being the purpose of the present investigation to ascertain, if possible, the details Of this contingent expense account, the reason for the silence of the attor- neys on this matter, which is of common knowledge, is not readily apparent
 The witness was interrogated on other items involved in the sum of S6 ,000,0 900 paid out by the company prior to 1SS6 and charged up to contingent expenses Hun ungton said on Thursday that the greater portion of this money had been used to promote the very necessary work of lex blaming to legislators the advantages of legislation desired by the railroad com pany
 1886. has it?'' asked Judge Hayne at the beginning of yesterdays proceedings.
 I cannot say that it has" replied Hun tihgtOn. ''I should say that about the same methods of making explanations are required now as were necessary then.
 
 not have so much important business now as formerly"
 How about the funding bill?"
 Well, that has been pending in one form or another for a long time. I think Congress made great mistake in not passing il"
 connection with that bilI?''
 "Oh. yes; we attempted to instruct the Co1gressnen concerning the value of the conditions of the bill. We tried to show them that it was a good bill.
 IT 1t was good bill why did they not lass it?'
 'I'fl tell you Where there are 100 men who know what is right, there will be but one Of the number who will have the courage to do what Is right; For in- stance, some will say, Why should we compel this great corporation to pay but per cent, when the farmer and mer- chant are compelled to pay 5. or ! per cent? No matter how fair the propo- sition may be they will get out of it on some such excuse as that"
 Did you have any explaining to do in connection with the San Pedro mat ter2'
 time that we had at our disposal. It cost us a lot of money to get up maps showing the advantages of Santa Monica over San Pedro, and we did everything that we thought the occasion warranted. But ii was useless-not because we were wrong in error in any of our statements but because Well, there were other reasons. The man who intended to do the contract work at San Pedro came out with the Government commission to this coast un- der an assumed name. You can draw your own conclusions of the influence he may have had. I don't know the mans name but I know what 1 have said is a fact think the commission decided on San Pc dro because the members thought the decision would be better for themselves D Did you ever have to explain things to any of the former California Railroad Commissioner
 'I don't even know any of the members of the boards to which you refer. Judg- ing from their actions, however, I should say that no one had ever explained things to them."
 Did your company ever send good and wise men to Sacramento to explain things to the legislators thereg
 Der much about it. Governor Stanford at tended to those things in this State. sometimes thought he paid too much-that is to say that the explanations set on foot by him were too expensive.
 When asked to what degree the South ern Pacific Company entered into politics in this State, Huntington treated his lis teners to a long discourse on the folly and cost of a corporation attempting to do politics and it's own business at the same time.
 sFWhen I was first elected to the presi- dency of the Southern Pacific Company of Kentucky" he said, II found that we were in politics knee-deep, and did not like it I said I would try to get the com pany out of politics, and 1 have since used my best endeavors to do so.'