Show THE MAIL CONTRACT when the overland mail contract was let we tool took the ground that the intention of the law lad been defeated by the action of the postmaster general the law provided that the baders should name the po point int i from rom which they propos proposed old to start 0 on n the mississippi but was silent as to the route to be traveled when bids were advertised for the postmaster G general e required that the route 0 over er which it w was as proposed to convey the mail should hould be stated in in each bid this the law did not require the bids w were ere so submitted and not one of the bidders proposed to carry the mail over the route which was finally adopted butterfield co bid to carry it from st louis via ua abu querque guerque and the mojave river country and accompanied their bid with a letter in in which they argued the superiority of that route over the one further south quite eloquently but the postmaster general rejected all the routes named in in the various various bids the lowest of which was by salt lake and marked one out for himself to which butterfiel Bulter fieH I 1 aco transferred their lid as the contract act could not be obtained for any other this was clearly understood at the time and hence the reason of our protesting against the action of the post office department part ment for so doing p we were quite fier fiercely caly assailed asa ild by b certa certain administration papers in in the state anan and accused of being factious and sectional in in our views t lews but we xea are requite quite gratified to find the ame views expressed by administration senators on the floor of the united states senate in the debate on the pacific railroad bill senator pugh of ohio a leading administration senator made the following follow ing remarks we commend them to the attention of the san francisco Jai Aati ional onal mr purn PUGH will the senator allow low in me to make him a suggestion 1 1 we did that with the overland mail route precisely we left every one of the contractors to bid they all did bid the postmaster general rejected all their bids and instead of that made a new route for himself that congress never in intended t end e d to tomake maka I 1 voted for the overland mail expecting it to commence at st louis and go to san francisco I 1 never intended thisdore this horse hoe running down forthe for the benefit of memphis and all that and therefore I 1 will not trust any contractors when they are at the mercy of the post mas masar ar general sacramento SacTa menio union umon 90 who knit her bro 3 31 ha a pair of f oss |