Year: 1877

lFrom the Mining Record New York May II


Too much praise caDnot be awarded to
the California capitalists for tire enter


prise which has resntted in the completion,
at a tune of profound financial depression,
of the railroad from San Francisco to Fort
Yuma on the Colorado River, distance
of about 720 miles as traVersed by the
road. To fully understand under what
difficulties such an undertaking has been
so happily achieved one must go over the
line of the road, and survey the dreary
desert wastes and nounta in lahy rinths
which have been overcome. Tho road
built, il ia said, is of the first class in point
of construction and equipments. On the
10 b of this month it will be ready for
operation to Yuma, which, we believe, Is
to be the terminus, until there shall be
come Congressional legislation providing
for location through Arizona eastward.
Already cars are running TO within eight
miles Of that terminus. This achievement
has already given national impetus to the
mining industry of Arizona and every
department of trade and mechanical indus
try in San Francisco is beginning to feel the
effect in the demand fov articles called for
in that newly opened field for mining en-
specially rich in gold, silver, and copper
mines OF notable value, but rendered use-
less because OF peculiar d f1icuties of trans.
portation TO and from. Bat now Yuma is
brought within thirty SIX hours of San
Francisco. This road has tbus far been
built without one dollar of pub subsidies.
| 1t constitutes long link in the Southern
Pacific Railroad, the building Of which
meets with inexplicable opposition on the
| part of some of the most Influential among
tho press of this city-a city that would
| profit immensely by the early construction
| of that particular roadway across the con-
tiuent-ior do not all roads lead to Rome
For this peculiar press opposition here in
! New York ipexplicable as it may seem to
be from any surface exposure, there must
| be motive, and a very strong one behind
| it , otherwise there would be noEe as
| saredly of that passionate invective against
| the public men believed or known to favor
such public aid to this great continental
highway as was so lavishly granted to the
Union Pacific Railway, not to speak Of
other trans Mississippi roads, which charac'
terizes some of our metropolitan journals
| Under those motives, or the infHencei
| which sway New York newspapers to op


pose 80 strenuously and practically the


building of the Southern Pacific Railroad
| we do not care to look. The public E1eI


of both psIties in Congress surely will b.


found to have statesmanship enough t


discern and appreciate what mighty inter


ests are to be developed by the early con


struction of this shortest of the continenta


ways to the Pacific, that would bring thi


city in immediate contact with the minera


regions of Northern Mexico, and thu


speedily open to American trade marke


for our manufactured produce to the valu


of $40 where 81 is derived at present from


all Mexico. The industrial and CONNER


cial interests to be Immediately stimulated


aud subserved by the building of this roaC


are absolutely incalculable; and no hostile


infloences-traceable to rival corporations


whether venal or idiosyncratic, licentiou


or merely stupid-should be suffered t


stand in the way of the necessary legisla


tion at the very next session of Congress