Central Pacific

“ I believe there is not one group in the Central Pacific where they have not established trading relations. They are said to have agents resident on every isle where there is any possibility of gain, and where the natives will tolerate the presence of a white man. Naturally the majority of these are by no means men calculated to improve the people; in many cases they are taken from the riff-raff, who in past years have sought in the isles an asylum from civilised laws, and by long residence have acquired a thorough knowledge of the habits and language of the natives. ”

“ The grounds of this opinion were not brought out with complete distinctness, but two judges held that there had never been a “natural and existing competition” in interstate commerce between the Southern Pacific and the Central Pacific. Nearly half of the text of the decision, moreover, was devoted to a description of the financial settlement of 1899, in which Congress appeared to have treated the control of the Central Pacific by the Southern Pacific as consistent with the statutes of the United States. ”

“ Within the last quarter of a century, discovery has turned to the islands of the Pacific, perhaps the most favoured region of the globe. Our great continental colony of Australia, its growing population, and its still more rapidly growing enterprise—its probable influence on our Indian empire, and its still more probable supremacy over the islands which cover the central Pacific, from the tenth to the forty-fifth degrees of south latitude ”

“ The Central Pacific with its eastern connection at Ogden forms one great system of transportation between the East and the West, and the Southern Pacific with its roads and connections, and steamboat lines, forms another great transcontinental system for transportation from coast to coast. The Central Pacific constitutes some 800 miles of the transcontinental line of which it is a part. The Southern Pacific system has practically its own line of railroads and steamboat connections to New York, via Galveston and New Orleans. ”

“ This was the same organization that had completed the Central Pacific. It appears that the Contract and Finance Company simply shifted men, teams and equipment from the Central Pacific to the Southern Pacific line between San José and Tres Pinos. Later it built the road from Goshen to Sumner, and that from San Fernando via Los Angeles to Spadra. In all, it built for the Southern Pacific 143.65 miles, including the stretch from Gilroy to Tres Pinos. In 1874 the Contract and Finance Company was dissolved and the Western Development Company took its place. ”

“ All of South America save Brazil and the two Guineas, all Central America, Mexico, the entire territory west of the Mississippi, now embraced by the United States, beautiful Cuba, from whose eastern province of Santiago Ponce de Leon across the lucent waves of the tropical sea coveted the ambrosial forests and fertile meadows of Porto Rico, whence he was to sail to the floral empire of Florida. But this was not all of Spain's magnificent domain. Far across the waters of the South Pacific was the now famous cluster of islands bearing the name of the Spanish king. ”

“ The Western end, the Central Pacific, was laid out under the supervision of Leland Stanford. It was heavily financed by the Mormons of Utah and also by the state government, the ranchmen, miners, and business men of California; and it was built principally by Chinese labor. The Eastern end, the Union Pacific, starting at Omaha, was constructed mainly by veterans of the Civil War and immigrants from Ireland and Germany. In 1869 the two companies met near Ogden in Utah and the driving of the last spike, uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific, was the occasion of a great demonstration. ”

“ We have already seen how the line from Roseville to Lincoln and Marysville was built and absorbed by the Central Pacific, under the corporate title of the California and Oregon Railroad Com- pany, but operated as the Oregon division of the Central Pacific. ”

“ It is the unhesitating popular judgment that the railroad at an early date “entered politics.” In a long letter dated August 26, 1873, Eugene Casserly asserted that the Central Pacific aimed to be and was [214] a third party in the politics of the state, holding the balance of power between the Democratic and the Republican parties, and controlling or seeking to control at will each or both of them. ”

“ Besides the loss of the Nevada mining traffic in the late seventies and early eighties, the Central Pacific also had to [362] reckon with a certain loss of business by reason of the opening of transcontinental competing routes such as the Santa Fé in 1881 and the Northern Pacific in 1883. In the early part of the period the decline in business seems to have been due mainly to local conditions; in 1884, however, as was to be expected, a serious decrease in the earnings from through business occurred. ”

“ Extending nearly ten degrees of latitude along the Pacific, and embracing the only safe and commodious harbors on that coast for many hundred miles, with a temperate climate and an extensive interior of fertile lands, it is scarcely possible to estimate its wealth until it shall be brought under the government of our laws and its resources fully developed. From its position it must command the rich commerce of China, of Asia, of the islands of the Pacific, of western Mexico, of Central America, the South American States, and of the Russian possessions bordering on that ocean. ”

“ In one year the Union Pacific had laid four hundred and twenty-five miles of track; in the same year the Central Pacific had laid three hundred and sixty-three miles. In one day the Union Pacific had laid seven and three-quarters miles; in one day the Central Pacific had laid a full ten miles. These records have never been beaten.
The whole thing was a feat equaled again only [iv] when America speeded up in the war against Germany; for when they once get started, Americans astonish the world. ”

“ The Central Pacific did not dare stop [171] work for fear that the federal government might be persuaded to subsidize another transcontinental road, and so deprive it of the monopoly which it was so anxious to retain; but it built as slowly as it could, and endeavored to make up by retrenching in other directions. Had the associates been able to sell securities in New York, the slowness with which the earning power of their system developed would not have been so serious a handicap. The territory was after all a rich one, and given time was sure to yield substantial profits. ”

“ This same policy would have had the important advantage, from the railroad’s point of view, of developing industry at points which were not affected by every change in the rates of its competitors. The Central Pacific was not the first railroad in the country confronted with the problem of how to treat the non-competitive points upon its lines. ”

“ Playing Towns Against Each Other
There is evidence that the promoters of the Central Pacific were perfectly aware of the possibilities of securing local subsidies by playing one California town against another. [28] Huntington wrote David D. Colton in 1871 that the company ought to get a large amount of land and other good things from parties having interests along the line between Spadra and San Gregorio Pass, if it would build them a railroad on which to get out. ”

“ The extreme remoteness of the islands, and the probability that they have always been more isolated than those of the Central Pacific, would also necessarily result in an imperfect and fragmentary representation of the flora of surrounding lands. ”