Chapter 14

THE GOULD FORTUNE AND SOME ANTECEDENT FACTORS

With his score or more of millions of booty, Jay Gould now had much more than sufficient capital to compete with many of the richest magnates; and what he might lack in extent of capital when combated by a combination of magnates, he fully made up for by his pulverizing methods. His acute eye had previously lit upon the Union Pacific Railroad as offering a surpassingly prolific field for a new series of thefts. Nor was he mistaken. The looting of this railroad and allied railroads which he, Russell Sage and other members of the clique proceeded to accomplish, added to their wealth, it was estimated perhaps $60,000,000 or more, the major share of which Gould appropriated.

It was commonly supposed in 1873 that the Union Pacific Railroad had been so completely despoiled that scarcely a vestige was left to prey upon. But Gould had an extraordinary faculty for devising new and fresh schemes of spoliation. He would discern great opportunities for pillage in places that others dismissed as barren; projects that other adventurers had bled until convinced nothing more was to be extracted, would be taken up by Gould and become plethora of plunder under his dexterous touch. Again and again Gould was charged with being a wrecker of property; a financial beachcomber who destroyed that he might profit. These accusations, in the particular exclusive sense in which they were meant, were distortions. In almost every instance the railroads gathered in by Gould were wrecked before he secured control; all that he did was to revive, continue and elaborate the process of wrecking. It had been proved so in the case of the Erie Railroad; he now demonstrated it with the Union Pacific Railroad.

THE MISLEADING ACCOUNTS HANDED DOWN.

This railroad had been chartered by Congress in 1862 to run from a line on the one hundredth meridian in Nebraska to the western boundary of Nevada. The actual story of its inception and construction is very different from the stereotyped accounts shed by most writers. These romancers, distinguished for their sycophancy and lack of knowledge, would have us believe that these enterprises originated as splendid and memorable exhibitions of patriotism, daring and ability. According to their version Congress was so solicitous that these railroads should be built that it almost implored the projectors to accept the great gifts of franchises, land and money that it proffered as assistance. A radiantly glowing description is forged of the men who succeeded in laying these railroads; how there stretched immense reaches of wilderness which would long have remained desolate had it not been for these indomitable pioneers; and how by their audacious skill and persistence they at last prevailed, despite sneers and ridicule, and gave to the United States a chain of railroads such as a few years before it had been considered folly to attempt.

Very limpidly these narratives flow; two generations have drunk so deeply of them that they have become inebriated with the contemplation of these wonderful men. When romance, however, is hauled to the archives, and confronted with the frigid facts, the old dame collapses into shapeless stuffing.

In the opening chapter of the present part of this work it was pointed out by a generalization (to be frequently itemized by specifications later on) that the accounts customarily written of the origin of these railroads have been ridiculously incorrect. To prove them so it is only necessary to study the debates and the reports of Congress before, and after, the granting of the charters.

SECTIONAL INTERESTS IN CONFLICT.

Far greater forces than individual capitalists, or isolated groups of capitalists, were at work to promote or prevent the construction of this or that Pacific road. In the struggle before the Civil War between the capitalist system of the North and the slave oligarchy of the South, the chattel slavery forces exerted every effort to use the powers of Government to build railroads in sections where their power would be extended and further intrenched. Their representatives in Congress feverishly strained themselves to the utmost to bring about the construction of a trans-continental railroad passing through the Southwest. The Northern constituents stubbornly fought the project. In reprisal, the Southern legislators in Congress frustrated every move for trans-continental railroads which, traversing hostile or too doubtful territory, would add to the wealth, power, population and interests of the North. The Government was allowed to survey routes, but no comprehensive trans-continental Pacific railroad bills were passed.

The debates in Congress during the session of 1859 over Pacific railroads were intensely aciduous. Speaking of the Southern slave holders, Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, denounced them as "restless, ambitious gentlemen who are organizing Southern leagues to open the African slave trade, and to conquer Mexico and Central America." He added with great acerbity: "They want a railroad to the Pacific Ocean; they want to carry slavery to the Pacific and have a base line from which they can operate for the conquest of the continent south." [Footnote: The Congressional Globe. Thirty-fifth Congress, Second Session, 1858-59, Part II, Appendix: 291.] In fiery verbiage the Southern Senators slashed back, taunting the Northerners with seeking to wipe out the system of chattel slavery, only to extend and enforce all the more effectually their own system of white slavery. The honorable Senators unleashed themselves; Senatorial dignity fell askew, and there was snarling and growling, retorts and backtalk and bad blood enough.

The disclosures that day were extremely delectable. In the exchange of recriminations, many truths inadvertently came out. The capitalists of neither section, it appeared, were faithful to the interests of their constituencies. This was, indeed, no discovery; long had Northern representatives been bribed to vote for land and money grants to railroads in the South, and vice versa. But the charges further brought out by Senator Wilson angered and exasperated his Southern colleagues. "We all remember," said he, "that Texas made a grant of six thousand dollars and ten thousand acres of land a mile to a Pacific railway company." Yes, in truth, they all remembered; the South had supported that railroad project as one that would aid in the extension of her power and institutions. "I remember," Wilson went on, "that when that company was organized the men who got it up could not, by any possibility, have raised one hundred thousand dollars if they paid their honest debts. Many of them were political bankrupts as well as pecuniary bankrupts--men who had not had a dollar; and some of them were men who not only never paid a debt, but never recognized an obligation."

At this thrust a commotion was visible in the exalted chamber; the blow had been struck, and not far from where Wilson stood.

"Years have passed away," continued the Senator, "and what has Texas got?" Twenty-two or twenty-three miles of railway, with two cars upon it, with no depot, the company owning everything within hailing distance of the road; and they have imported an old worn-out engine from Vermont. And this is part of your grand Southern Pacific Railroad. These gentlemen are out in pamphlets, proving each other great rascals, or attempting to do so; and I think they have generally succeeded. ... The whole thing from the beginning has been a gigantic swindle. [Footnote: The Congressional Globe, etc., 1858-9,