Show OLD PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANIES In the course of an editorial the San Francisco Francisco Fraucisco Fran Frau cisco Chronicle liaS has this Attorney General describes a the evidence evi oVi dence deuce in connection with the transfer of ot oil land by by- bythe bythe the Southern Pacific to tho Kern Trading and Oil cO company j Y a as ap sensational and startling d disclosures The evidence may nifty be sensational and startling 1 in Washington but not in California By most niost of th the tho older inhabitants inhabitants' of this state the news Trill not even bo be received a as a a. disclosure f Jn n order to escape o from the limitations of its grants granta the Southern Pacific together with the tho subsidiaries sub subS I V which it absorbed has Das for many years pur pus pursued sued a policy similar to that in the pr present ont case Knowing Knowin that as 88 the ori original inal grantee it mi might ht beheld beheld be bo held to th the terms of tb the grant tho the rai railroad road company has transferred all aU St such cb grants to dummy instrumentalities mentalities Whether the t properties were administered or or marketed marketed-by the Kern hern Trading an and Oil company by the tho Western Development company or by some Mme other dummy it ft was waa always tho the railroad interest which wa was served V That supplies a vivid reminder reminder- of old times When S Senator ni ol Sargent obtained from congress the right of way and emoluments for the Union and Central Pacific railroads though ugh th the money subsidies s thus granted w were re more inore tha than enough t to build t the roads the managers of the two roads loads at once laid their plans to fleece the government every man who had to deal with the road and to tomake tomake tomake make the country between Omaha and San Fraucisco Fraucisco Frau Frau- cisco tributary to those cities The eastern rn company at once organized The Credit company made up of its own d directOrs the western estern company organized d The Contract and Finance company on the same basis ba ba ba- sis And the th robbery continued until the bonds came came caine due full due full thirty t yea years V s. s In Inthe the tho sane same same way th their empire of lands granted them hem was handled Anyone who cried out against their extortions was crushed if it was wa in their power to crush erush hi him L i l did t their wilt will courts were in pe perpetual pet pet- ual fear of them Th yaU became m rich as ret retail il merchants do but not one of them ever comprehended compre- compre what they possessed or how much richer a a ge generous erous and honest policy y toward th the men on whom they relied for patronage could have made them It t required E E. H H. H Harriman imatO to to pick up th the work they left and to show the possibilities |