102 Transactions of the 



ramifications and branches will reacli every spot. The great heart 

 of enterprise beats strongly, the arteries throb with vigor, and the 

 capillaries will soon be as full of life and motion. The railroad 

 system of California is like one of its own oaks. Its roots are lirinly 

 fixed; its trunk is sturdy anil steadily growing in girth and solidity; 

 its branches, however far they may stretch, are flourishing and green, 

 whilst the new twigs arc healthy shoots of a healthy stock. In the 

 grateful shade of this tree there is prosperity, especiaily prosperity of 

 the field, and the broader its burgeons, the greater our gain, my gain, 

 the State's gain, your gain. Let the earth teem and the means be 

 wanting for conveying the supply to the market of demand, and it 

 might as well be barren. Let the wheat fields glow and whiten in 

 the beneficent sunshine, the woolly herds ramble over a thousand 

 hills, tlie fruit trees bend under the weight of their plump ])roducts, 

 but let tlie difiiculties and cost of transportation be overwhelming, 

 and the best crop that God ever gave does not rnean a repayment to 

 the toiling man. In the break-neck race for a living to-day, one can- 

 not afford to be severely handicapped. Gentlemen, it must be a fair 

 field and no favor, or you are distanced on the first heat. There are 

 malcontents who will see no soul in a railroad corporation, and there 

 are irreconcilables to whom the very name of a railroad company, 

 and above all that of the Central Pacific, is the matador's scarlet cloth 

 itself. Thanks to a little common sense, and a sentiment of just 

 appreciation, I am not of that number, nor do I for one instant count 

 you as holding a place in these disaffected ranks. 



I look back a few years, and I see California separated from the 

 rest of the United States-by an impassable barrier, a double barrier; 

 nay, more than that, a triple barrier; first, that of a lofty range of 

 mountains, with its cleft sides the liome of wild beasts; with its 

 crevasses deep as Dante's Gulf of Time; with its caiions washed by 

 unknown rivers, and its peaks hoary with unmelting snows. Next, 

 that of a desert, white with the bones of dead men and salt rheum ; 

 and next, that of a second range of mountains, throwing its jagged 

 edge almost up to the stars. Brave hearts on the other side crossed 

 the Rockies, and braver hearts on this side climbed the Sierra, and 

 both reached out to grasp hands in the desert! That clasping of 

 hands did more for California than the discovery of gold. It bound 

 the East and West together; it ])rouglit us the bone and sinew of 

 tlie country, the settler; it made us brothers A^'herc we wore before 

 but strangers; it has placed us on a competing scale uith the rest of 

 America, with the rest of the world! All honor I say, then, to those 

 three or four Sacramentans who risked their substance in this noble 

 work; who braved continual abuse; who struggled against fearful 

 odds; who bore with misrepresentation and coldness; who,seekingaid 

 in San Francisco, found none ; who, looking for countenance there, 

 found but one paper, and that a weekly, which had the justice to put 

 their claims honorably before the jniblic; who, as simple business 

 men undertook and carried through a scheme which the boldest 

 speculators shrugged their shoulders at; who were at once their oAvn 

 explorers, caiutalists, workers, engineers, and examiners; who built 

 a road which is to-day the wonder of the traveling world ; all honor 

 to Leland Stanford, to C. P. Huntington, to Charles Crocker, to Mark 

 Hoi)kins, T say; and to those who are left, I wish from the bottom of 

 mv heart all profit too, for the plain reason they deserve it. Out of 

 that remarkable ciuartet, one has been taken, and I never mention 



