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Show As I Remember Them Collis, P. Huntington By C. C. Goodwin I MASSIVE and strong, compelling in all his ways, C. P. Huntington filled exactly the world s idea of a masterful man of affairs. af-fairs. Had he been trained a soldier and been given a command, he would not have depended upon tactics or grand strategy, but upon force. He would never have fought until he believed he had the heaviest battalions, and then would have struck directly at the enemy's center, and his order would have been to "slay and slay and slay" until all opposition was crushed. From such points in his history, as they appeared from time to time, the late Mark Hanna was nearer his type of man than any public man that I can recall. Still he was a most courteous and companionable compan-ionable man to those whom he held as friends, and, deep down, he was a generous man and most appreciative of those who had favored him. After a close friendship of nearly forty years ho broke with Leland Stanford because he persisted per-sisted in permitting the sycophants around him to elect him U. S. Senator, when A. A. Sargent wanted the place. He did so because as a just man he felt that it was his duty and Stanford's duty to serve Sargent in every honorable way, in gratitude for the inestimable services -performed without reward in getting the charter for their railroad, the old Central Pacific, through Congress, loaded as it was with subsidies. subsi-dies. That he was a captain among great financiers, finan-ciers, he abundantly established in his more than thirty years' wrestle with the strongest of them. His one weakness in that regard was the strength of the late VJ. H. Harriman. If he once 1j made up his mind, he would not change it. U ,' he once fixed his eyes upon a golden cloud, he noted nothing at his feet, though what he . stumbled over might be real gold, while the cloud was but an illusion made by passing sunbeams. His heart was fixed on California; he held it as holding more treasures, treasures in soil, in mines, in scenery, in climate, than any other state, but when he came to the dividing line where the glorified, wooded Sierra, having ex- hausted all the moisture that came in from the , sea, broke down into the desert to the east; he ' j said to himself: "All this is as but the barren ' ocean at best; if we build a railroad across it, the road will be but as a bridge, our profits must come from California and from where beyond be-yond the mountains the green fields are once more found." And notwithstanding the expansion expan-sion that he saw in, and the profits he realized ( from, that desert, he never changed his stur born mind. Thus with the completion of the road to Promontory, his idea was to commor- j cially fortify San Francisco, and later Los Angeles An-geles and San Diego, to keep all opposition roads ' from coming in from any direction; his thought being to build up San Francisco and so far as possible, California, and to milk the desert for . "all that the traffic would bear." I So soon as possible for him he went east and J inaugurated the building of the Chesapeake and i Ohio road, his dream evidently being to com- ' plete, link by link his roads, to build a great J new capital for commerce at Newport News and depend upon the through traffic for his ultim- J ate great fortune. And he fought it out on that line as long as he lived. And he dominated the ' ra other three chief associates with him and that f policy ruled to the last. m We cannot help but think that had Mr. Har- D riman been in his place, when the results from the Comstock, the other great mines of the desert, and the possibilities of the soil when f touched by water, been shown him; with a quick s intuition he would have said to himself: "Why, l of course, vast treasures are at my feet, else nature would not have so carefully guarded them through the centuries, by this forbidding desolation, it is for me to make them available through a transportation system that will give the men who toil with lr wvn and brain a I chance." And he would havt fixed his capitals ! p at San Francisco, ' at 'Los Angeles, at Portland and Seattle, not to keep others out for he would have known that would be impossible, but to is have covered the country that he wanted and lrom which he would have been sure of drawing I ' sufficient rewards. I And when the mortgages on the old through ,' road fell due, instead of its being but a rusty i' line of steel and a right-of-way, it would have ' been double-tracked from Omaha and Kansas 1 City to San Francisco and Portland, so perfect '. In condition and equipment that passengers go- (i ing east or west would have no thought of tak- !' ing any other line, and he would have settled ) the mortgages with his individual check. ' Mr. Huntington was a merchant in Sacra mento when the Comstock was discovered. He I with his business partner, Mark Hopkins, in con- I sultation with Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker" 1 and his brother, Judge Crocker, after much con- ) sideration, determined to build a toll road from Dutch Flat over the Sierra to a terminal ' on Truckee river, got their charter and i began work. ' This was in 1859. In the meantime, Theodore P. Judah, a great engineer, had built a railroad from Sacramento up the W valley to Folsom. As he built that road his eyes were always turning to the blue Sierra, and his dream was to build a railroad over them. At that time Dutch Flat was a most prosperous placer mining camp. Working great banks of gravel by hydraulic power had reached perfection perfec-tion there. The people of that place raised the money to make a preliminary railroad survey to determine whether to build a railroad across .the mountains was possible and practical, and engaged Judah to do the work. He ran many lines, and returning, reported that the project was entirely feasible; that it was simply a question of work and money. Of course the work was altogether beyond the Efforts of Dutch Flat, and finally Judah went to ) ithe men who were building the toll road. They listened to his report, which in substance was, that while a first-class road could be built via I, Dutch Flat and Donner Lake, the route should Ebe up the north fork of Feather river the present pres-ent Western Pacific route because a saving of sixteen hundred and fifty feet in the highest alti-tude alti-tude of the road would be made. One of his listeners said: "That would cause the road, descending the mountains on the California side, to debouch near Marysvillo; it Would give a boom to Marysville property, while our real estate here in Sacramento would not be enhanced at all." Then Judah said: "Great God! Can you not see that this means more than a thousand Marysvilles and Sacramentos combined?" Then another of the listeners said: "If we an complete our toll road from Dutch Flat across the mountains; if we can get a subsidy from this county, from Plucer and perhaps Nevada Ne-vada and Eldorado counties, from San Francisco and from the United States government, we may possibly build a railroad up from this city to a connection with our toll .id at Dutch Flat, and ! i then, if the Comstock mines hold up for three or four years, we may make personal fortunes of $200,000 or $300,000 each." Those were great fortunes in those days. That was as broad as were the visions of those gentlemen, theni So a company was organized and launched with Governor Stanford, president. Then the business was placed in the hands of Senator Sargent in Washington to obtain the right-of-way and as much more as possible from the government. It was just at the time when the east was most anxious about the status of California and the desire was great to hold the H state steadfast for the Union, and Congress was M ready to grant Californians about everything they M wanted. The great war was imminent and the M stination of the treasure ships from Call- H iornia was a matter of vital concernment to the H Hence, Sargent was able to get the right-of- H way and the tremendous subsidies in land, an M out and out gift, and in money to be possibly H returned after many years. Then, as the sub- sidles were to be doubled when the road left H the valley and began to climb the mountains, H Hl George 0. Graham went to Washington and con- H vinced the authorities that the foothills began H j only twelve miles out of Sacramento. San Fran- H '! Cisco gave the company a bonus of $400,000, H Sacramento $250,000, and Placer county $200,- H , 000 if I remember rightly and the work foe- H gan. A company within the company and made HL up of the same men, was formed, and the con- 1 ' tvol for building the road was let by the railroad H company to the Contract and Finance Company. H'' The railroad company as a company made noth- H i ing by the building, but the Contract and Finance H3 'Company was prosperous. When the first mile Hi was built, as much profit was made as the mile H and equipment had cost. Hti But let no one conclude that the building of H that road was not a great achievement. Moun- H tains were not torn down then as they now are. H Dynamite was not discovered then and nitro- H glycerine was awfully dangerous. It was far from H the base of railroad supplies, the second-class H labor of California was scarce and practically H worthless, the first-class laborers could not be H obtained; before the work was hardly "begun, a H) great war was threatening the very life of the Ht nation and fast destroying its credit, and behind H all there was no faith in the success of the H undertaking in any financial center of the world. Hi Then there was a mile and a quarter in altitude jjrf to be made in ninety miles and the jealous Sierra H piled up its obstacles in the way of the audac- H ious few who were essaying to lead the assault H up its rugged side. H Anyone who remembered how long a time H . "was consumed in boring the Hoosac tunnel will H ' catch a glimp3e of the work before these men, H Charlie Crocker was the executive man in the H field. Mark Hopkins saw to the accounts; Gov- H ernor Stanford wrote an optimistic letter now H and then, while upon Mr. Huntington was the H work of keeping the finances always in solid H 'form, and in purchasing rails, rolling stock, etc. H Judge Crocker was too ill to be of much use. H Before the work started, elaborate plans for H a railroad office were prepared. They were H shown to Mr. Huntington; with a pencil he H sketched a cheap building, one story, with five H or six rooms, in form and appearance much like a dilapidated barn, and said: "Build it that way, that will do for us until we get out of the woods." And it did. He went east and advertised for bids for a huge contract for rails and rolling stock. One bid, the lowest, had enclosed with the bid a separate sep-arate note explaining that a large percentage would, should the bid 'be accepted, be returned to him personally as his commission. He accepted ac-cepted the bid but returned it with a request that it be made over less the commission, that it might be filed, as there were to be no individual individ-ual commissions in the building of the road. Mr. Crocker contracted for ten thousand Chinese for graders, tried them a month,, then informed in-formed the companies to which they belonged that there must be a change; that no men could work on the food they were restricted to, that wheaten flour, beef, pork, mutton and vegetables vege-tables must be substituted for a great part of the everlasting rice. This was done, and in another month they became an effective working force. So the road pushed its way slowly to the crest of the mountains; the grade down the eastern slope was much swifter and when the desert was reached, it was rushed with all speed until the locomotive touched noses at Promontory. Promon-tory. The minds of the chief actors had grown lm-mensly lm-mensly in performing their great work. They had, too, apparently grown in their acquisitiveness. acquisitive-ness. They never for a day used the road as a common carrier, but as private property. They did nothing to develop the country through which the road passed, but rather to exact the utmost revenue possible. When a carload ten tons of ordinary merchandise cost $340 from Chicago to Sacramento; Sacra-mento; if the car was stopped at Reno, one hundred and fifty miles east of Sacramento and run up the little fifty-mile road from Reno to the Comstock, the charge there was $760. The through freight to Sacramento and the local f i eight back to Reno was exacted. When people complained, they were treated as enemies, and as nearly as possible the company owned the legislature, congressmen and judges of California. The same company pushed the road from Sacramento to Oregon, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, for the subsidies given for building them, and finally out across Arizona and New Mexico to eastern connections. It nursed all its ventures but the old Central Pacific; that it simply milked until when the payments came due upon it, it consisted of little but a streak of rusty steel and a right-of-way. Meanwhile, Mr. Huntington had grown to be acknowledged as one of the foremost financiers iu the nation and the spectacle he presented holding up, controlling and guarding the mighty enterprise that he and his partners had' established, estab-lished, after all his first associates had died and he hhMself was an old man, was grand. His brain never faltered, his energy never lost its spring. His iron will fought down all obstacles he worked in royal harness to the last, in trufS a financial and Industrial king. In the forest of men in California in the Argonaut days there was one lordly oak. As that first forest melted away and a new one of different species succeeded, this oak still stood; warded off all storms that were hurtled against it; turned aside the damp and the frost; wave its arms in the face of the hurricane; beat back decay; healed its own wounds; sheltered its own eagles, and stood erect until struck and shattered in a moment by the thunderbolt. That oak was C. P. Huntington; one of the highest types of the men who fought back the savageries of the west coast; blazed the trails over which progress could advance, smoothed the paths and erected signal stations to point the way for civilization to come and 'build its temples, that at last full enlightenment might find prepared for it a home. |
