CONGRESS. (PACIFIC RAILROAD INVESTIGATION.) 



197 



they have a property which at the present 

 rates at which it sells in the stock market, hav- 

 ing a capital stock of $60,000,000, is worth 

 $33,750,000 the Union Pacific Railroad alone 

 at this moment beyond all the debts that it 

 owes. Government debts and everything else. 



" If you will jnst pass a law : 'You shall do 

 just what you have a mind to, and if you pay 

 off our debt at maturity it is all that we will 

 ask ' ; they can take advantage of a favorable 

 condition in the money market and raise the 

 money and pay every cent they owe you before 

 1897. We do not ask the Government to ex- 

 tend its debt. They will find a new creditor 

 who will let them have money on fifty, sixty, 

 or seventy-five years with 3 or 4 per cent, 

 interest, and pay you, and pay the first-mort- 

 gage bonds, too. 



" What you are doing by this 40-per-cent. 

 business of yours is to say to this railroad 

 company: 'You shall not use your money as 

 you please, as you would let another debtor, as 

 you would have to let him because you could 

 not help yourself; you shall not put it where 

 it serves the public and pays an income, as Mr. 

 Adams shows in his report it does, of from 8 

 to 10 per cent., but you shall take this amount 

 of money which you are getting 8 or 10 per 

 cent, for now, and for twelve years lock it up 

 where you can can get only 2 per cent., and 

 put it into a sinking-fund ; not that you can 

 pay us anything that is due now, but that you 

 can be ready to pay us in the year 1897.' 



" Remember this is not a creditor laying his 

 hand on the debtor's property. It is the 

 guardian of the ward; it is the paternal Gov- 

 ernment or non-paternal Government saying, 

 ' We propose only to make you manage your 

 property reasonably, with reference to the fact 

 that you have a debt coining due in twelve 

 years.' That is the only assertion of authority 

 under which this is vindicated at all, and I af- 

 firm, Mr. President, on my serious responsi- 

 bility, that there never was a more wicked, un- 

 just, monstrous proposition than this proposi- 

 tion is, if you strip it of the mistakes which have 

 deceived honorable and just gentlemen on this 

 floor and elsewhere, and come to understand it 

 in all its relations. 



" Here is a railroad that you said you would 

 lend this money to, and they should not pay 

 you until 1807, and now you come in twelve 

 years before, when they have so managed their 

 property that it is worth beyond all their 

 debts, yours and every other, by the unerring 

 test of the stock-market, $33,750,000, and you 

 say, 'Take every single dollar that you want to 

 occupy new territory with against rival lines, 

 every single dollar that you want for an im- 

 provement over 4,600 miles of railroad terri- 

 tory, every single dollar that you want to se- 

 cure increased safety with for passengers, for 

 life and property and character; take every 

 single dollar, and strip yourself of your credit 

 which is necessary to carry on your road and 

 have it hold up its head, and put your money 



out at 2 per cent, and lock it up for twelve 

 years ' ; and Senators are going to be fright- 

 ened into a performance of that kind by anony- 

 mous articles in irresponsible New York news- 

 papers, if they do it at all." 



Senator McPherson, of New Jersey, said in 

 answer : 



" I have been earnest, I have been persistent 

 in demanding that this resolution be brought to 

 the attention of the Senate. Sir, the conduct 

 of Congress within the last six months has been 

 the most humiliating in its history. Bills have 

 been brought before the Senate and House of 

 Representatives seeking a settlement with dif- 

 ferent Pacific railroads on terms which would 

 grant to them, if passed, a larger subsidy than 

 was ever heretofore given to them at any time. 

 If the bill reported by the honorable Senator 

 from Massachusetts, known as the funding bill 

 as to which I will here and now do him the 

 credit to say that as soon as he discovered its 

 character he immediately withdrew it from the 

 attention of the Senate if that bill had passed 

 the Senate, the stock of the Union Pacific Rail- 

 road would have gone up 50 per cent. Why? 

 It contemplated giving them a larger subsidy 

 than the entire amount of the original subsidy 

 bonds. 



"That bill was reported by the Judiciary 

 Committee, an honorable and intelligent com- 

 mittee, and now that same committee bring 

 before the Senate as an addendum or as a rider 

 to this resolution, which was simply a resolu- 

 tion of inquiry, what ? An amendment which 

 applies mainly to one line of railroad, to wit, 

 the Union Pacific. If that amendment had 

 been incorporated into "this resolution, the 

 stock of the Union Pacific Railroad in an hour 

 would have fallen 50 per cent. 



" Now, I want to know why the honorable 

 Senator from Massachusetts charges news- 

 papers in the city of New York with being 

 stock-jobbing newspapers. There is no agency 

 upon earth which has been so influential as the 

 Judiciary Committee of the Senate to enable 

 stock-jobbers to make money; in the first 

 place, on the funding bill, and, in the next 

 place, to bear the stock on the resolution now 

 before the Senate. I have no sympathy with 

 such talk. 



"There are such things, of course, as stock- 

 jobbing newspapers. Why not stock-jobbing 

 newspapers as well as stock-jobbing men ? 

 But for the Senator from Massachusetts or 

 myself to say that the great influential journals 

 in the city of New York were engaged in a 

 stock-jobbing scheme because they opposed the 

 passage of the funding bill, is to my mind 

 exceedingly unjust. I do not believe they 

 were controlled by any such mercenary motive ; 

 and certainly if this resolution becomes a law 

 and the investigation of these Pacific Railroads 

 can be made under the resolution full, thor- 

 ough, and sufficient, it will reveal to my mind a 

 condition of corruption and extravagance never 

 known before in the history of this country." 



