CONTEST AT WASHINGTON. 243 
fade through their own commercial centres, came forward 
: ‘Ager for the contest which would bring so much triumph 
pd profit to the winning side. The men of Chicago urged 
at they had already projected three lines across the State of 
fowa to meet at Council Bluffs (Omaha), where they were 
bidging the muddy Missouri; that from this point to the 
ocky Mountains, Nature news had graded a line for them 
ip to the very summit of the continental watershed, that 
ere only a few hills had to be crossed, that another 000 
F les would take them to the great Mormon settlement at 
alt Lake, and that their Californian friends assured them 
that the Sierra Nevada might be crossed at the back of 
Virginia City, and San Francisco reached, — any in- 
urmountable difficulty. 
St. Louis, on the other hand, pleaded that she- had 
ed from words to deeds; that lines westward had not 
been projected but built; that the Missouri Pacific 
road, commenced in 1857 with aid from the State, already 
an p etraight as an arrow westward across Missouri to Kansas 
Jity ; and that, lastly, as Kansas (not Nebraska) was the 
literranean”’ State, and St. Louis more central than 
cago, Kansas City and not Council Bluffs, should be the 
ng-point of the grand route westward. Money was 
t like water in the contest. I remember seeing it stated 
American journal that one company alone “employed 
element of influence” to the extent of three millions 
ollars. The civil war was hotly raging on all sides, 
the whole nation was in a ferment. Five hundred 
pounds sterling were leaving the treasury daily 
meet the current expenses of the Northern armies ; even 
1eton was threatened, but for all that the Pacific 
‘Bill was carried triumphantly. Grants of land 
R 2 
SS 
2 
