This road cannot be built cheaply; for provisions and all the
necessaries of life must rule high along its line, and most of the
laborers will have to be carried thither. Yet it is but fair to consider
that many of the heaviest items of expense on most other railroads—land
and land damages, timber, stone, etc.—will here cost nothing but the
labor of preparing them for this use. Then the rock-cutting will, in the
average, be light, and the bridging still lighter. For much of the
distance, five thousand dollars per mile will grade and bridge a double
track in the very best manner. Doubtless, there are miles that would
cost $100,000; but these are comparatively few; while the Colorado is
the only formidable stream to be crossed between the Missouri and the
Sacramento. And, as the road would necessarily be commenced at each end
and pushed toward the center, it would have a considerable traffic on
the very first hundred miles that should be completed, and a large one
on the first five hundred. Were it to be finished next April so far as
Carson Valley from the west and “Pike’s Peak” from the east, I firmly
believe that those two sections would pay expenses and interest on cost
forthwith. If so, what might not be hoped from the completed road?
Again; it is to be considered that, by building thus in sections, each
portion, as finished, would be used to forward provisions, rails,
timber, etc, for the next. If wheat be worth five dollars per bushel
to-day at Denver, it by no means follows that it would cost half so
much, with a railroad from the Missouri completed nearly or quite to
that point.
I estimate that a railroad from the Missouri at Kansas City, Wyandot,
Leavenworth, Atchison, or St. Joseph, to San Francisco, must be nearly
or quite two thousand miles long, and that it would cost, with a double
track and fully equipped, seventy-five thousand dollars per mile, or one
hundred and fifty millions of dollars. A sanguine engineer would
probably reduce this to fifty thousand dollars per mile, or one hundred
millions of dollars; but, as most works cost more than they were
expected to, it is as well to begin with large figures, so as not to be
disappointed. More than a third of this road would build itself—that is,
so much of it as lies in California, or within the boundaries assigned
herself by the new state of Kansas, would readily be built by private
enterprise, if the connecting link were certain to be perfected in due
season. It seems advisable, however, to have a single road, under one
direction, from the Missouri to the Pacific, and thus make the certain
profits of the extremities contribute toward the construction and
support of the less promising center.
But, supposing the cost of a Pacific railroad to be one hundred and
fifty millions of dollars, or even one hundred millions of dollars, how
is so large an amount to be procured?
I answer—not wholly by individual subscription, or voluntarily
associated enterprise. The amount is too vast; the enterprise too
formidable; the returns too remote and uncertain. In the present
depression of railroad property and interests, an attempt to raise such
a sum for any such purpose, would be madness. One railroad to the
Pacific would probably pay; but what assurance could an association of
private citizens have, that, having devoted their means and energies to
the construction of such a road, it would not be rivaled and destroyed
by a similar work on some other route? No hundred millions can be
obtained for such an undertaking without assurance of government aid.
But neither will it answer to commit the government unqualifiedly to the
construction of such a work. Its cost, in the hands of Federal
functionaries, would be incalculable; it would be an infinite source of
jobbing and partisan corruption; it would never be finished; and its net
revenues would amount to nothing. And then the question of location—the
conflict of rival interests—would alone suffice to prevent the
construction of the work by the federal government.
But let that government simply resolve that the Pacific road shall be
built—let Congress enact that sealed proposals for its construction
shall be invited, and that whichever responsible company or corporation
shall offer adequate security for that construction, to be completed
within ten years, on the lowest terms, shall have public aid, provided
the amount required do not exceed fifty millions of dollars, and the
work will be done, certainly for fifty millions’ bonus, probably for
much less. The government on its part should concede to the company a
mile in width, according to the section lines, of the public lands on
either side of the road as built, with the right to take timber, stone
and earth from any public lands without charge; and should require of
said company that it carry a daily through-mail each way at the price
paid other roads for conveying mails on first-class routes; and should
moreover stipulate for the conveyance at all times of troops, arms,
munitions, provisions, etc., for the public service, at the lowest
rates, with a right to the exclusive possession and use of the road
whenever a national exigency shall seem to require it. The government
should leave the choice of route entirely to the company, only
stipulating that it shall connect the navigable waters of the
Mississippi with those of the Pacific Ocean, and that it shall be
constructed wholly through our own territory. Payment of the national
bonus to be made, say one-twentieth so soon as one-tenth of the road
shall have been finished and approved, and at this rate until one-third
of the road shall have been built, when the remainder of one-fourth of
the bonus shall be paid; when half the road shall have been built, the
payment of bonus shall be increased to one-third; when the work is
three-fourths done, what remains of five-eighths of the bonus shall be
paid; and when the work is done and accepted, all that remains unpaid of
the bonus shall be handed over to those who will have so nobly earned
it.
By adopting this plan, the rivalries of routes will be made to work for,
instead of working against, the construction of the road. Strenuous
efforts will be made by the friends of each to put themselves in
position to bid low enough to secure the location; and the lowest rate
at which the work can safely be undertaken will unquestionably be bid.
The road will be the property of the company constructing it, subject
only to the rights of use, stipulated and paid for by the government.
And, even were it to cost the latter a bonus of fully fifty millions, I
feel certain that every farthing of that large sum will have been
reimbursed to the treasury within five years after the completion of the
work in the proceeds of land sales, in increased postages, and in duties
on goods imported, sold, and consumed because of this railroad—not to
speak of the annual saving of millions in the cost of transporting and
supplying troops.
Men and brethren! let us resolve to have a railroad to the Pacific—to
have it soon. It will add more to the strength and wealth of our country
than would the acquisition of a dozen Cubas. It will prove a bond of
union not easily broken, and a new spring to our national industry,
prosperity and wealth. It will call new manufactures into existence, and
increase the demand for the products of those already existing. It will
open new vistas to national and to individual aspiration, and crush out
filibusterism by giving a new and wholesome direction to the public
mind. My long, fatiguing journey was undertaken in the hope that I might
do something toward the early construction of the Pacific Railroad; and
I trust that it has not been made wholly in vain.
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