The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad | Page 4

million shares at five dollars each. Twenty-five cents per share to be
paid down to provide a fund to commence operations and subsequent
assessments of like amount to be paid as the money was needed until
the full amount had been paid in. One hundred miles to be constructed
each year and the whole line completed in twenty years.

All of these propositions were more or less visionary and advanced by
men of theory with little or no capital. They had the effect of
awakening public interest and paved the way for a more feasible plan.
The question of a Pacific railway, its practicability, earnings, and effect,
were constantly before the people. In 1844 the idea had become firmly
fixed, the leading advocate being a New York merchant named Asa
Whitney, who has been called the "Father of the Pacific Railway." Mr.
Whitney had spent some years in commercial life in China, returning to
the United States with a competency. Becoming enthused with the idea,
he put his all,--energy, time, and money into the project of a
trans-continental railroad, finding many supporters. At first he
advocated Carver's plan, but becoming convinced that it was not
feasible, he sprung a new one of his own. He proposed that Congress
should give to him, his heirs and assigns, a strip of land, sixty miles
wide, with the railroad in the center, this from a point on Lake
Michigan to the Pacific Coast. This land he proposed to colonize and
sell to emigrants from Europe, from the proceeds build the line,
retaining whatever surplus there might be after its completion, as his
own.
Whitney was an indefatigable worker, thoroughly in earnest, a fluent
speaker, both in public and private, well fortified with statistics and
arguments. He personally travelled the whole country from Maine to
fifteen miles up the Missouri River. The legislatures of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, New
York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee,
Alabama, and Georgia, all endorsed his plan by favorable resolutions.
The Senate Committee on public lands made a report recommending
his proposition. Thus strongly endorsed, his plan was brought before
Congress in 1848 in a bill entitled "Authorizing Asa Whitney, his heirs
or assigns, to construct a railroad from any point on Lake Michigan or
the Mississippi River he may designate, in a line as nearly straight as
practicable, to some point on the Pacific Ocean where a harbor may be
had." The road to be six foot gauge, sixty-four pound rails. The
Government to establish tolls and regulate the operation of the line,
Whitney to be the sole Owner and receive a salary of four thousand

dollars per year for managing it.
The proposition was debated for days in the Senate and then was tabled
on a vote of twenty-seven to twenty-one. The opposition dwelt largely
on the length of time Whitney would necessarily require. Say he could
colonize and sell a million acres a year, this would only be funds
enough to build one hundred miles and consequently the two thousand
miles would require at least twenty years. The defeat was largely owing
to the opposition of Senator Benton of Missouri, the most pronounced
friend of the West in the House, who used the argument of the power
and capital it would put in the hands of one man, Whitney's. This he
characterized as a project to give away an Empire, larger in extent than
eight of the original states, with an ocean frontage of sixty miles, with
contracting powers and patronage exceeding those of the President.
Upon the defeat of Whitney's project, Benton brought forward in 1849
one of his own for a great national highway from St. Louis to San
Francisco, straight as may be, with branches to Oregon and Mexico.
The Government to grant a strip one mile wide, so as to provide room
for every kind of road, railway, plank, macadamized, and electric motor,
or otherwise constructed where not so practicable or advantageous.
Sleighs to be used during those months when snow lay on the ground.
Funds for its construction to be provided by the sale of public lands.
Bare in mind this was only fifty-six years ago, but eighteen years
before the Union Pacific Railway was completed, and was the
proposition advocated by the recognized leader of the Senate in matters
western.
Up to the year 1846 when by the treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo,
Mexico, ceded to us California, our only territory on the Pacific Coast
was Oregon and Washington. The acquisition of California, followed
very shortly by the gold discoveries and the consequent influx of
people, gave that state a large population and furnished a prospective
business for a Pacific railway. This had heretofore been a matter of
theory, very questionable, to say the least, being based on