UNLIMITED INCREASE OF RAILROADS. 351 



of the question of transportation than California. Within her 

 borders there is neither present nor prospective competition. 

 The establishment of a true and cordial reciprocity between the 

 railroads and the people, is not only a great essential of pros 

 perity, but is entirely practicable and probable. The princi 

 ples established in the searching investigations which we have 

 summarized, are applicable here as elsewhere; but the practical 

 working out of the problem is simplified here, by the fact that 

 there are but two parties whose interests require to be har 

 monized. In a speech made in San Francisco, on the 23d of 

 September, 1872, Senator Cole thus spoke of railroads in gen 

 eral, and of what had been contributed to those in California : 



The inspection of a railroad map of the &quot;United States shows the 

 country netted all over with railroads, Particularly is this the case 

 in the northern Atlantic States. A more careful inquiry discloses 

 the fact that 63,000 miles of road are now completed and in actual 

 use If they were stretched across the continent they would make 

 twenty-five entire railroads from ocean to ocean, and give us a 

 Pacific Railway every fifty miles from the British Possessions quite 

 to the frontier of Mexico. Or, if running north and south, they 

 would span the country fifty times or every fifty miles from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific. There is a mile of railroad to every one 

 hundred voters, and if these roads, as is alleged, have cost $40,000 a 

 mile, there is an investment in such property equal to $400 to every 

 man, or $60 to every man, woman and child in the land. These 

 roads have all been constructed and many of them rebuilt several times 

 within the past forty years. I can myself remember the beginning 

 of railroads in the United States, but the end no man can see. For 

 the last ten years they have increased much more rapidly, in pro 

 portion, than the population, and this will probably continue for 

 many years to come, and until all parts of the country are abun 

 dantly accommodated with the iron rail. Nothing can limit their 

 construction but the supply of material and capital, and these are 

 without limit. Ties can be grown, should necessity require it, and 

 the mountains of iron, already discovered, are absolutely inexhaust 

 ible. 



The question as to where railways shall be permanently established, 

 is merely a question of time. &quot;Where they are not wanted they will 

 not be built, or if built will not long be maintained; and where they 

 are wanted, their construction is certain, notwithstanding arguments 

 to the contrary, which may be drawn from slight delays and unim 

 portant variations. Railroads, as a general rule, conform to the re 

 quirements of business; and it has rarely happened that the persons 

 having their construction in charge have had the temerity to disre 

 gard such demands. 



The Central and Western Pacific Railroad Companies, now one 

 and the same concern, have received from the United States Govern 

 ment, in interest-bearing bonds, the sum of $27,855,680, and they 

 are moreover authorized to issue their own first-mortgage bonds, to 



