“Let infamy be that man's portion who uses his power to corrupt, to ruin, to debase,” says Channing, in righteous indignation, speaking of the atrocities perpetrated by Napoleon the First to gratify his vanity and ambition. Further on, with increasing earnestness, Channing adds: “In anguish of spirit we exclaim: ‘How long will an abject world kiss the foot that tramples it? How long shall crime find shelter in its very aggravations and excess?’”

If Channing lived now, his ‘anguish of spirit’ would be far greater to find in his own country, firmly enthroned, a power that corrupts, ruins and debases as utterly as that which he so eloquently deplored, and his own fellow-citizens—the free-born Americans—ready and willing to kiss the foot that tramples them!

Not infamy, but honor and wealth, is the portion of the men who corrupt and ruin and debase in this country. Honor and wealth for the Napoleons of this land, whose power the sons of California can neither check, nor thwart, nor escape, nor withstand. And in California, as in France, “crime finds shelter in its very aggravations and excess,” for after ten years of fighting in Congress against legislation that would have given to the people of the Southern States and the Pacific Coast a competing railway; and after fighting against creating a sinking fund to re-imburse moneys due to the Government, and fighting against laws to regulate freights and fares on a fair basis, they (the Napoleons) refuse to pay taxes on their gigantic property, thus making it necessary for the Governor of California to call an extra session of the Legislature to devise some new laws which will compel those defiant millionaires to pay taxes, and not leave upon the shoulders of poor people the onerous duty of defraying public expenses.

Is not this “aggravation of excess?” Excess of defiance? Excess of lawlessness? How insidiously these monopolists began their work of accumulation, which has culminated in a power that not only eludes the law of the land, but defies, derides it! They were poor men. They came before the Government at Washington, and before the people of California, as suppliant petitioners, humbly begging for aid to construct a railroad. The aid was granted most liberally, and as soon as they accumulated sufficient capital to feel rich they began their work of eluding and defying the law. They became insolent, flinging defiance, as if daring the law to touch them, and truly, the law thus far has been powerless with them. At Washington they won their first victories against the American people; and now California has the shame of seeing that she has not the power to enforce her laws upon the men she made rich. The Legislature convened and adjourned, and there is no way yet of compelling the insolent millionaires to pay their taxes or regulate their rates on freights and fares!

It seems now that unless the people of California take the law in their own hands, and seize the property of those men, and confiscate it, to re-imburse the money due the people, the arrogant corporation will never pay. They are so accustomed to appropriate to themselves what rightfully belongs to others, and have so long stood before the world in defiant attitude, that they have become utterly insensible to those sentiments of fairness animating law-abiding men of probity and sense of justice.

These monopolists are essentially dangerous citizens in the fullest acceptance of the word. They are dangerous citizens, not only in being guilty of violation of the law, in subverting the fundamental principles of public morality, but they are dangerous citizens, because they lead others into the commission of the same crimes. Their example is deadly to honorable sentiments; it is poison to Californians, because it allures men with the glamour of success; it incites the unwary to imitate the conduct of men who have become immensely rich by such culpable means.

Mr. Huntington in his letters (made public in the Colton suit), shows the truth of all this; shows how bribing and corrupting seemed to him perfectly correct. He speaks of “the men that can be convinced” (meaning the men that will take bribes), as naturally as if no one need blush for it. And with the same frankness he discloses his maneuvering to defeat the Texas Pacific Railroad, and elude the payment of moneys due the Government. It is surprising, as well as unpleasant, to read in Mr. Huntington's letters the names of men in high positions whom he reckons in his list as “men who can be convinced” and he speaks of them in a cool way and off-hand manner, which shows how little respect he has for those whom he can convince. Perhaps there are some in his list who never did take a bribe from him, but then those gentlemen are in the position of “Old Dog Tray,” who suffered for being in bad company.

“I have set matters to work in the South that I think will switch most of the South from Tom Scott's Texas and Pacific bill,” etc., etc., Mr. Huntington wrote in April, '75, and in November of the same year he concluded to send Dr. Gwin to work on the credulity of the Southerners, to switch them off.

“I think the doctor can do us some good if he can work under cover. * * * He must not come to the surface as our man. * * * Not as our agent, but as an anti-subsidy Democrat and a Southern man,” etc. When the deceiver returned, Mr. Huntington wrote: “I notice what you say about the interest that Dr. Gwin should have. I have no doubt that we shall agree about what his interest should be,” says Mr. Huntington, speaking of the price to be paid the ex-Senator for his work of helping to “switch off the South!”

In another letter Mr. Huntington says: “I had a talk with Bristow, Secretary of the Treasury. He will be likely to help us fix up our matters with the Government on a fair basis.”

Another letter says: “I am doing all I can to have the Government take six million acres of land, and give the railroad company credit for fifteen million dollars, etc. I wish you would have the newspapers take the ground that this land ought to be taken by the Government and held for the people, etc. Something that the demagogues can vote and work for,” etc.

Mr. Huntington also says: “I think there should be a bridge company organized (that we are not in) to build over the Colorado River, etc. In this way we could tax the through business on this line should we so desire,” etc.

In another letter, dated March 7th, 1877, he says: “I stayed in Washington two days to fix up a Railroad Committee in the Senate. * * * The Committee is just as we want it, which is a very important thing for us.” * * *

He again says: “The Committees are made up for the Forty-fifth Congress. I think the Railroad Committee is right, but the Committees on Territories I do not like. A different one was promised me. Sherrel has just telegraphed me to come to Washington,” etc.

Mr. Huntington mentions in other letters the fact of bills being submitted to him before being put to vote; and also about being consulted concerning the formation of Committees and other Congressional matters, much as if Congress really wished to keep on the good side of Mr. Huntington. But it looked also as if he did not have everything his own way always, for at times he loses patience and calls Congress a “set of the worst strikers,” and “the hungriest set” he ever saw.

In his letter to his friend Colton, of June 20th, '78, he exclaims: “I think in the world's history never before was such a wild set of demagogues honored by the name of Congress. We have been hurt some, but some of the worst bills have been defeated, but we cannot stand many such Congresses,” etc.

The thing that annoyed Mr. Huntington the most was that he could not persuade Governor Stanford to tell the bare-faced falsehood, that the Southern Pacific did not belong to the owners of the Central Pacific.

Again and again Mr. Huntington urged the necessity of this falsehood being told, childishly forgetting the fact that such prevarications would have been useless, as all Californians knew the truth.

In the Congressional Committees, however, he himself attempted to pass off that misstatement. It is not likely that he was believed, but he succeeded in killing the Texas Pacific, and in “seeing the grass grow over Tom Scott.” The subterfuge no doubt was useful.

Mr. Huntington having buried the Texas Pacific, and also Colonel Scott, as well as other worthy people (of whom no mention has been made in this book), now proceeded to demand that the Government surrender to him and associates, the land subsidy granted by Congress to the Texas Pacific.

This, surely, is an “aggravation of excess!”

The House Committee on Public Lands in their report on the “forfeiture of the Texas Pacific land grant” reviewed Mr. Huntington's acts with merited severity. Amongst many other truths the report says: “The Southern Pacific claims to ‘stand in the shoes’ of the Texas Pacific. Your committee agree that ‘standing in the shoes’ would do if the Southern Pacific filled the shoes.” But it does not. It never had authority or recognition by Congress east of Yuma. For its own purpose, by methods which honest men have denounced, greedy to embrace all land within its net-work of rails, to secure monopoly of transportation, surmounting opposition and beating down all obstacles in its way, and in doing so, crushing the agent Congress had selected as instrument to build a road there, doing nothing, absolutely nothing, by governmental authority or assent even, and having succeeded in defeating a necessary work and rendering absolutely abortive the attempt to have one competing transportation route to the Pacific built, it coolly asks to bestow upon it fifteen millions of acres of lands; to give it the ownership of an area sufficient for perhaps one hundred thousand homes, as a reward for that result.

And the committee (with one dissenting voice only) reported their opinion that the Southern Pacific Railroad Company had neither legal nor equitable claim to the lands of the Texas Pacific which Mr. Huntington wished to appropriate.

But is it not a painful admission that these few men should have thwarted and defeated the purpose and intent of the Government of the United States of having a competing railway in the Texas Pacific? Not only Colonel Scott, and Hon. John C. Brown, and Mr. Frank T. Bond, the President and Vice President of this road, but also Senator Lamar, Mr. J. W. Throckmorton, Mr. House, Mr. Chandler, of Mississippi, and many, many other able speakers, honorable, upright men, all endeavored faithfully to aid the construction of the Texas Pacific. All failed. The falsehoods disseminated by ex-Senator Gwin, which Senator Gordon and others believed, and thus in good faith reproduced, had more effect when backed by the monopoly's money.

But Tom Scott is laid low, and so is the Texas Pacific; now the fight for greedy accumulation is transferred to California. The monopoly is confident of getting the land subsidy of the Texas Pacific—after killing it; of getting every scrap that might be clutched under pretext of having belonged to the decapitated road. Thus the lands that the City of San Diego donated to Tom Scott on condition that the Texas Pacific should be built, even these, the monopoly has by some means seized upon. No Texas Pacific was built, but nevertheless, though clearly specified stipulations be violated, San Diego's lands must go into the voracious jaws of the monster. Poor San Diego! After being ruined by the greed of the heartless monopolists, she is made to contribute her widow's mite to swell the volume of their riches! This is cruel irony indeed.

And now those pampered millionaires have carried their defiance of the law to the point of forcing the Governor of California to call an extra session of the Legislature to compel them to obey the law. Speaking of these matters a very able orator said in one of his speeches in the extra session:

“It is stated in the proclamation of the Governor to convene this Legislature, that for three or four years past the principal railroads in this State have set at defiance the laws of the people; that they have refused to pay their taxes; that they had set up within our borders an imperium in imperio; that they had avowed and declared themselves free from the laws of the State under which they hold their organization; that there were no laws in this State to which they were bound to submit and pay such taxes as would have fallen to them had they been subject to the laws of the State, etc., etc. It has not occurred before in the United States that a great Commonwealth has been defied successfully by its own creatures.”

Other speakers followed, and we of California have now, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that faithful hearts and bright intellects have been aroused and are watching the strides of the monster power.

The Spanish population of the State are proud of their countryman, Reginaldo del Valle, who was one of the first to take a bold stand against the monopoly. This young orator with great ability and indomitable energy, has never flagged in his eloquent denunciations of the power which has so trampled the laws of California and the rights of her children.

Mr. Breckinridge, another brilliant orator, speaking of the pertinacious defiance of the law exhibited by the monopolists, said: “Nothing but a shock, a violent shock, a rude lesson—such as the old French noblesse got when they saw their chateaux fired and their sons guillotined—will awaken them from their dream of security.”

The champions of right fought well, fought nobly, in the legislature, but alas! the gold of the monopoly was too powerful, and the extra session, called to devise means of compelling the railroad corporation to obey the law, adjourned—adjourned, having failed in accomplishing the object for which it was called.

The legislators themselves acknowledged that corruption was too strong to be withstood. Mr. Nicol said:

“There was once a belief that the legislature of California was a high, honorable body, into which it should be the pride and glory of fathers to see their sons gain admission. I have been here two sessions, and instead of being a place to which an honorable ambition should prompt a young man to aspire, I believe it to be the worst place on the continent. We are surrounded by a lobby which degrades every man here by constant temptation and offers of corruption; the monopoly has made it no place where a careful father will send his son.”

If these powerful monopolists were to speak candidly, would they say that the result of their struggle for money in the last fourteen years of their lives has compensated them for that shoulder-to shoulder fight with opponents who were in the right, and must be vanquished by foul means? “I shall see the grass grow over Tom Scott,” prophetically wrote Mr. Huntington several times. He had his wish. The grass grows over Tom Scott. Mr. Huntington can claim the glory of having laid low his powerful opponent, for it is well known that the ten years' struggle for the Texas Pacific undermined Colonel Scott's health beyond recovery. Broken down in health, he left Mr. Huntington master of the field. But is the victory worth the cost? The fight was certainly not glorious for the victor. Is it to be profitable? Many lives have been wrecked, many people impoverished, much injustice done, and all for the sake of having the Southern Pacific Railroad without a rival, without competition. This road runs mostly through a desert; how is it to be made profitable? In their eager pursuit of riches, the projectors of it miscalculated the inevitable, and did not foresee that other capital could, in a few years, build competing lines through more favorable routes; did not foresee that it would have been a better policy to adhere honestly to the terms of their first charter; did not foresee that it would have been better not to sacrifice San Diego. No, they deemed it a wiser plan to kill Tom Scott, to kill San Diego, and then take the money earned in this manner to go and build railroads in Guatemala and in British America. To men who do not think that in business the rights of others should be considered, this policy of crushing or desolating everything in the path of triumphant accumulators no doubt is justifiable. But why should the rich enjoy rights that are “deadly to other men?” It is alleged in defense of the California railroad monopolists that as they do not think it would be lucrative to run a railroad to San Diego, they do not build any. If this were a true allegation, why did they fear the Texas Pacific as a competing road? Why did they spend so much money and ten years of their lives to kill that railroad? Surely, if they knew so well that a road to San Diego would not pay, why were they so anxious to prevent its construction? Was it out of a purely disinterested and philanthropic solicitude for their rivals? Did Mr. Huntington wish “to see grass grow over Tom Scott” because he kindly desired to prevent his financial ruin?

Obviously, to maintain that the monopoly did not build a road to San Diego because it would not pay, and that they would not allow Tom Scott to build it either, for the same reason, is not logical. If to construct and run such road would have been ruinous, that was the very best of reasons for allowing it to be built. This would have been as effective a way of getting rid of Colonel Scott as by seeing grass grow over his grave.

But no, it is not true that the San Diego road would not have been profitable; the truth is, that because it would have been profitable, it was dreaded as a rival of the Southern Pacific. But the monopoly had no money to build two roads at once, so they (characteristically) thought best to kill it. As they could not have it, no one else should. And for this reason, and because one of the railroad kings conceived a great animosity against the people of San Diego and became their bitter, revengeful enemy, they were not allowed to have a railroad. This last fact seems incredibly absurd, but if we remember how a Persian tyrant razed a city to the ground because he ate there something that gave him an indigestion, we ought not be surprised if a modern king—one of California's tyrants—should punish a little city because it did not turn out en masse to do him humble obeisance. Doubtless, to indulge in such petty malice was not lofty; it was a sort of mental indigestion not to be proud of; it was a weakness, but it was also a wickedness, and worse yet, it was a blunder.

Time alone, however, will prove this. In the meanwhile, the money earned in California (as Californians only know how) is taken to build roads in Guatemala. Towns are crushed and sacrificed in California to carry prosperity to other countries. And California groans under her heavy load, but submits, seeing her merchants and farmers ground down with “special contracts” and discriminating charges, and the refractory punished with pitiless severity. Thus, merchants and farmers are hushed and made docile under the lash, for what is the use of complaining? When the Governor of this State sought in vain to curb the power of the monster and compel it to pay taxes by calling an extra session of the Legislature, and nothing was done, what more can be said?

Ask the settlers of the Mussel Slough what is their experience of the pitiless rigor of the monopoly towards those who confidently trusted in the good faith of the great power. These poor farmers were told by the railroad monopoly to locate homesteads and plant orchards and vineyards and construct irrigating canals; that they would not have to pay for their land any higher price than before it was improved. With this understanding the farmers went to work, and with great sacrifices and arduous labor made their irrigating canals and other improvements. Then when this sandy swamp had been converted into a garden, and valueless lands made very valuable, the monopoly came down on the confiding people and demanded the price of the land after it had been improved. The farmers remonstrated and asked that the original agreement should be respected; but all in vain. The arm of the law was called to eject them. They resisted, and bloodshed was the consequence. Some of them were killed, but all had to submit, there was no redress.

And what price did the monopoly pay for these lands? Not one penny, dear reader. These lands are a little bit of a small portion out of many millions of acres given as a subsidy, a gift, to build the Southern Pacific Railroad, which road, the charter said, was to pass through San Diego and terminate at Fort Yuma.

The line of this road was changed without authority. [Mr. Huntington talks in his letters about convincing people to make this change.] Thus the Mussel Slough farmers got taken in, into Mr. Huntington's lines—as was stated by the public press.

But these, as well as the blight, spread over Southern California, and over the entire Southern States, are historical facts. All of which, strung together, would make a brilliant and most appropriate chaplet to encircle the lofty brow of the great and powerful monopoly. Our representatives in Congress, and in the State Legislature, knowing full well the will of the people, ought to legislate accordingly. If they do not, then we shall—as Channing said “kiss the foot that tramples us!” and “in anguish of spirit” must wait and pray for a Redeemer who will emancipate the white slaves of California.

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