The San Francisco call., 1899-05-09
AN OPEN LETTER
CALLS A BLUFF
OF HUNTINGTON

the citizens Of this region I want to call
your attention to some matters which at
this writing occur to my mind
Are you aware of the fact that your cor
poration was freely given substantial
rights and privileges by our citizens when
the railroad was first built in this region
in 1887?
Were you ever informed that the Com
mon Council of the city of Santa Barbara
bestowed upon your corporation without a
dollars expense one of the city piazas,
situated near your freight depot in Santa
Barbara, which afforded you terminal Ia
cilities, the purchase of which would have
cost you many of your good American
dollars?
You are doubtless aware that what is
known here as the Citizens Right of Way
Committee procured for your corporation
and freely bestowed upon 1t the right
of way extending, with few trivial ex-
Ceptions, continuously from near the city
of Santa Barbara TO the northern limits
of this county a distance of seventy or
eighty miles, absolutely free of charge
upon a promise distinctly entered into by
your corporation about the year 1887 that
the railroad would be completed up the
coast and Santa Barbara would have the
advantages of a direct and shorter route
to the city of San Francisco within a com
paratively brief time-I think two years
was the limit set by the directors of your
corporation.
Are you aware of the fact that your cor
poration is now running its daily trains
over at least two strips of land within
sentatives of the railroad agreed to pay
the owners the price of $40 per acre and
for several years past that promise has
not been fulfilled?
Do not imagine, Mr. Huntington, that
the citizens of Santa Barbara who think
for themselves attach any value to your
threat of suspension of the work. Those
of us who have observed the signs of
the times" know full well that your pur-
pose is, or ought to be, to complete the
coast line as eXpeditiously as possible in
order TO reduce your fixed charges and
cost of hauling by taking advantage of
the more direct line, which in gradiance
and natural features will permit you to
haul freight from Los Angeles by the
coast at much less cost to the corpora
ton than you are now hauling it over the
almost prohibitiVe grades at the Tehacha-
pi. We also believe that the contract en-
tered into by your corporation and the
Santa Fe system, by which the common
use of both roads of the track from Mo-
jave to bakersfield is to be maintained in
accordance with the traffic carried over
II by each, means when interpreted that
as soon as you have completed the more
economical and natural highway upon the
new coast line that you will abandon
all use of the mountain section on what
is now known as the old line up the
valley" and leave your friends from Bos-
ton TO foot up the bills for the permanent
maintenance of that track, so that the
profits OF your own corporation may be
thereby prudently and judiciously in
creased.
Believing that these truths must abso-
lutely control your conduct in the man
agement of the vast system which you
have so successfully developed, do not
think our citizens believe that any action
Of theirs in maintaining their rights and
preventing your corporation from having
its own way in all things will force you
to commit the fundamental error Of aban-
dOning the completion of the gap after all
financial arrangements have been COM
pleted and binding contracts entered into
by your corporation with those who are
to build the railroad now in course OF
construction.
In conclusion I desire to express to you
my personal thanks for this opportunity
to publicly expose your unhappily con-
ceived bluff" At the risk of alluding to
a subject with which you may not be en-
tirey familiar l cannot refrain from
stating that in the language of the green
cloth. many poker players, who are great
buffers. are SO economically constructed
in their mentality that they never over
look white chip. Very respectfully
yours, JOHN }. BONCE.