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Show I As I Rmembej:Th;emTT-716r D. yudah By C. C. Goodwin A"" S .THE years slowly unwound after history began Its record, from the works of all the myriads who lived and died in the ancient H world, seven achievements were separated from H the rest and called the ' Seven Wonders of the H World." The first was the pyramids of Egypt. H They were built by slaves to gratify the whims H of kings and to make for those kings sepulchers, H when their work should be done. The second HI was the Pharos built by Ptolemy Philadelphia Hi to be a watch-tower on the Nile. The third was Hij the hanging gardens of Babylon, built to gratify H the pride of a king or queen. The fourth was H the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, which was built H by the Asiatic states very much as the people of H Utah built the Salt Lake temple. It required H the patient labor of thousands of men and Hi two hundred and twenty years of time to H complete it. The fifth was the statue of H Jupiter at Olympia, altogether glorious in H ivory and gold and precious stones. The sixth H was the mausoleum which Artemesia built for the H tomb of her husband, and the last was the colos- H sus of Rhodes, a statue of brass built in honor 1 of the sun. H' It will be noticed that none of these H were to be of any practical use to the world ex- Ht cept the watch-tower built by Ptolemy. The rest W were either for tombs or in honor of the deities J which the various nations worshipped. In our M day another wonder has been added to the won- m ders of the Old World. It was not for a tomb; M. it was not to gratify kingly pride; it was not M to make an ostentatious display of wealth that it M was created. The object was to open a new M channel for trade and to make new capitals for fl commerce across the continent. We refer, of m course, to the first Pacific railroad across the M Sierra Nevada mountains and the deserts east of H them. Kyi For a long time efforts had been made to be- M gin some tangible work looking to the building M of a transcontinental railroad. Benton had advo- M cated it; Fremont had advocated it; the presB of m California constantly agitated the subject, point- M ing out its needs, expressing belief in its prac- H ticablllty, and the glory that would come with H its construction. California senators and rep- H resentatives had urged the undertaking, somo fl half-hearted preliminary surveys had been made, H but as a whole the people of the country, cowed H by the distance and the descriptions of the route, H believed the work impossible. H Doubters explained that even could the road H be built, it would be impossible to manufacture H rolling stock that could stand the strain of a M 3,000 mile journey. Capitalists when approached H began to lock their safes. With that air which H is apt to attach to a man who has been a long H time a banker, they would explain that could it H be possible to build the road, the revenues from H it would not for fifty years be sufficient to pay H for the lubricating fluid in the boxes of the car H Wheels. H Then they would pull down their maps, show H the gnat American desert as it was outlined, H explain that from the Missouri to the Pacific there flj tvas a stretch of 2,000 miles of arid lands, desert VH mountains of rock and barren sand; then quos- H tion the sanity or honesty of any man who serir H ously advocated the pursuit of such an impossl- H bility. H It makes one smile to think what has been H done since: how limited was the sagacity, how fll Impotent the capacity, how narrow were the ho. H izons of those wise aBses of forty years ago. But there was one man, Theodore D. Judah, of different mold. He was among men what the eagle is. among birds. His way of mounting a height was by riding up it on the strong wings of enthusiasm and courage, but he was careful to assure himself in advance that the wings were strong enough to make the giddy flight. When on the crags, no matter how rude his eyrie might be, he was sure of its safety, for ho himself had anchored it, so when the hurricane was raging it was a joy for him to flap his strong pinions and join his defiant scream to the clamors clam-ors of the gale. When the work of building the road Ib spoken of or thought of, the glory goes to four men in Sacramento whose names have been so closely linked with that road that all other people are, by the great masses of men, forgotten in that connection. But Judah was the man who first dreamed of the enterprise, and followed his dream with his instruments. He scaled all the mountain tops; he made his surveys; he worked year after year upon his theme. Because of him the project finally rounded into form. Because of him the road was begun. He was a civil engineer, en-gineer, poor in purse, but with visiouu in his brain sweeter than the thirst for gold. He built the road from Sacramento to Folsom. As he laid out that line his eyes every day stretched to the blue mountains beyond, until the Idea of scaling those heights with the iron horse became an absorbing passion with him. So on his own a" -unt he laid his lines across them in three dwerent places. He followed the dream through half as many years as Columbus did before be-fore the Italian obtained the three little ships and their poor fittings with which to push back from the face of the ocean the veil and reveal a new continent. He tried the rich men of San Francisco. Fran-cisco. They heard his story; they smiled at h's enthusiasm, but they secretly buttoned up their pockets and locked their safes and said wisely ' to each other that the man was an enthusiastic lunatic. Judah had made the preliminary surveys and established that the work was practicable; that it was but a matter of pluck, energy, persistence and money to construct the road. But months and years slipped away. Talk about the Inertia of matter! It does not compare with the inertia of provincial minds, or at times, with the inertia of public opinion. In July, 1859 the great Comstock mines east of the Sierra Nevadas were discovered; later the rush to that new field began which soon swelled into a stampede. The men who later were the magnates of the Central Pacific road the big four undertook the building of a stage road from Dutch Flat, California, Cali-fornia, on the west side of the Sierras to what is now Truckee on the eastern slope They gave the direction of the work to Judah. While that was in progress he laid the results of his investigation inves-tigation before the men who later organized a company which finally undertook the work. He pointed out that the plan was feasible; that it was possible to scale those heights and to build the western end of a transcontinental line. At last he awakened enough of their sympathy for them to begin to help him. They intended to try to build the road for fifty miles to connect with the western terminus of the wagon road. He begged them to take another icute, pointed out that by taking that route 1,600 feet in elevatioi would be saved, but they shook their heads incredulously. in-credulously. They said, "Possibly we can, but such subsidies as we can get and by such help as we can draw to us, complete the road as high as Dutch Flat, and then if the Comstock mines hold o.ut for a few years, we can all make little fortunes." And while they were speaking that way, this man was in thought starting a train from Sacramento, seeing it scale two great ranges of mountains and the desert which stretched away between these ranges and making a revolution revo-lution in the world's commerce. In thought he v saw cities Bpring up along the trail which he should blaze in the wilderness. He saw the exhaustion, ex-haustion, the terror and the fatigue of crossing the plains taken away, and so while he talked strict business to the principals in the enterprise, and while by his skill no mistakes were made in estimating grades or curves, when the day's work was finished the lullaby that he went to sleep on was the sound of the whistles which should blow in midcontlnent before his work should be done. i This work was not like th'e work of the ancients. an-cients. It was a monument built to Industry. Its object was to forge a mighty link to connect with steel the two great oceans. It was to push the frontier back. It was, through a dreary and fear ful wilderness, to smooth a way so that civilization civiliza-tion might, with unsoiled sandals, advance along this new path and build to herself temples. It was to be a monument to progress which was to shine out on the world fairer than did the watch tower on the Nile; fairer than the statue of Jupiter, with its gold and ebony and ivory and precious stones. It was to be a notice of American Ameri-can power, much more impressive than was the statue that stood at the entrance of Rhodes in honor of the sun. It was to herald a new exodus. It was to create clouds by day and pillars of fire by night which for all time should light the way for commerce. It was to be a rolling fort of defense de-fense against savages. It was to make possible the driving away of the frown from the repellant face of the desert, and to make it possible for fair homes and great cities to appear where before be-fore all had been desolation since the beginning of time. It was to solve new feats In engineering, engineer-ing, and to give mankind a new notice that the earth and all therein are subject to the domination domina-tion of royal brains. The work has been duplicated dupli-cated north and south since then, but that does not detract in the least from the glory of the first achievement, and the Inauguration of that glory was due, is due and always will be due more to T. D. Judah than to any other one or to any other ten living men. He dreamed it out first. He established its practicability by his unerring instruments. He turned all the enthusiasm of his great nature into the work until he infused some cool business brains with some of the fervor of his energy and hope. When the first stakes were set he went to Congress and reneved there his Impassioned argments in favor of the project, pro-ject, and when the line was completed to Ogdon, then when Its success had been established, he tried with all his strength to bring to his associates asso-ciates the aid necessary to purchase the Union Pacific, and make a continuous line under one company from the Missouri to Sacramento. Ho wore himself out, and died in the mighty work, but his life was spared until it was finished, and now it is his monument. He needs no other. The Union Pacific Company, in gratitude for the solid business persistence which drove west the eastern dnd of the transcontinental line, built for the Ames on the summit of the Rockies a monument monu-ment of granite. Judah needs no other monument monu-ment but the road itself. But it would be a grateful grate-ful thing for the company which was organized through his genius and carried to success by his "y genius, to build to him on the Sierras a monument monu-ment of marble. He was a great man. Among men he wag like Saul. He was. taller than most of them; ho was strongly made; he was massive every way, (Continued on Pago 5.) AS I REMEMBER THEM. (Continued from rage 2 ) He was given the enthusiasm of the poet and llie solid combinations of the scientific engineer. He consecrated his life to the eighth wonder of the world. He saw it completed and then, worn out, lay down and died. When the names of the strong men and the great men who found California Cali-fornia a wilderness and then caused the transfiguration trans-figuration which revealed a glorified State, are called over, one after the other, close to the v.ery head of the shining list should be the name of T. D. Judah. The near friends of the stalwart men who built the road may hold that the foregoing is a slighting of the builders' sagacity, public spirit and prescience. It is not so intended. What they did was a wonder, but it is true that at first they did not believe in the possibility, much less tho feasibility, of the enterprise. When they began, Cheir hope was to complete a road to Dutch Plat only. But that was far in advance of the opinions opin-ions of the masses of men in California, almost infinitely in advance of the "sound thought" of the wise financiers of the East. If, after Senator Sargent pushed the Pacific Railroad bill through Congress, the bill with its landed subsidies, with its bond endorsements, if later, when George G. Gorham in Washington was able "to move the foothills down within twelve miles of Sacramento" that the double subsidy sub-sidy might cover the construction so that tho building of the first section of the road showed a large profit over expenses: the builders had more courage to go on with the work; all that does not detract seriously from the great achievement. achieve-ment. J Even after the through road was completed and triumphant trains were running regularly, wise men shook their heads and said, "They cannot can-not deceive business men; that road is being run at a loss; they are merely putting the best face on the matter possible, until they can sell out." Right, here another fact may be stated. The Congress that passed the subsidy never intended that the company should pay the bonds. The people at that time did not expect it. Considering Consider-ing what the road has been to the nation, oxcopt for the extortions practiced by the company, it never would have paid the bonds. As it is, there is glory enough for all connected con-nected with it. |