Mr. WARD. I have had an opportunity to examine the bill, and I have no objection to it. Mr. SCHENCK. I move to reconsider the vote by which the bill and substitute were recommitted.

The motion to reconsider was agreed to. The question recurred upon the motion to recommit.

Mr. SCHENCK. I withdraw the motion to recommit, and call the previous question on the bill and substitute.

The previous question was seconded and the main question ordered; and under the operation thereof the substitute was agreed to.

The bill, as amended, was then ordered to be engrossed and read a third time; and being engrossed, it was accordingly read the third time and passed.

Mr. SCHENCK moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed; and also moved that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

The latter motion was agreed to.

Mr. SCHENCK. I move to amend the title so that it shall read, "A bill to facilitate the settlement of the accounts of paymasters of the Army."

The motion was agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE.

A message was received from the Senate, by Mr. FORNEY, its Secretary, notifying the House that that body had passed joint resolution H. R. No. 67, providing for the reappraisement of the lands described in an act for the relief of William Sawyer and others, of Ohio.

Also, that it had passed bills and joint resolution of the following titles, in which he was directed to ask the concurrence of the House:

An act (S. No. 74) for the admission of Colorado into the Union;

An act (S. No. 277) for the relief of William Cook; and

Joint resolution (S. R. No. 74) providing for the acceptance of a collection of plants tendered to the United States by Frederick Pech.

ADMISSION OF COLORADO.

Mr. ASHLEY, of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent that Senate bill No. 74, for the admission of Colorado into the Union be taken from the Speaker's table, read a first and second time, and referred to the Committee on Territories.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. I object.

DABOLL'S FOG TRUMPET.

Mr. DARLING, by unanimous consent, submitted the following resolution; which was read, considered, and agreed to:

Resolved, Thrt the Committee on Commerce be instructed to inquire into and report on the expediency of establishing Daboll's fog trumpet at Sandy Hook, port of New York.

TAXATION OF BANK CURRENCY.

Mr. DELANO, by unanimous consent, introduced a bill declaring certain obligations of the United States and national bank currency subject to taxation under State authority; which was read a first and second time, ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. I call for the regular order of business.

The House accordingly proceeded, as the regular order of business, to the consideration of the unfinished business of last evening, being House bill No. 414, to secure the speedy construction of the Northern Pacific railroad and telegraph line, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes.

The pending question was Mr. WENTWORTH'S motion to refer to the Committee on Public Lands.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to discuss the details of the bill before the House; nor is it my object to answer the various objections which were raised to it yesterday; nor shall I, as did the gentleman from

Chicago, speak under the apprehension of the effect my remarks or my vote on the bill may have upon uninformed constituents on the eve of an election. My constituents, I apprehend, know my opinions on this subject pretty well. It was in 1850 that having met with Asa Whitney's pamphlet, and sought a conference with him on the subject of a Pacific railroad along a northern route, I gathered as many as I could of the people of Philadelphia in a meeting presided over by the mayor, and urged them to unite with me in applying to the American Congress to grant to Mr. Whitney and his associates just what is proposed to be granted to other men by the bill now under consideration. From that day to this I have never doubted the wisdom of the proposition; nor have I felt less interest in the subject since a dear sister, and a graceful girl of rare intelligence, over whose childhood I had watched with a father's solicitude, have been laid in that valley which Bryant, who is yet in the enjoyment of lusty life, after he had passed life's meridian described by saying

"Where rolls the Oregon,

And hears no sound save his own dashings." I still have living kindred in that valley; and for the last ten years have been in frequent and constant correspondence with those who dwell near Puget sound, and have thus learned something of the mighty and varied resources of the north Pacific slope, the region through which the only river that penetrates the heart of the country pours itself into the beautiful but sleeping ocean.

I shall discuss the bill in its broad and general relations. The question is, as the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. HENDERSON] well said yesterday, one of the gravest importance that has been presented to this Congress. He said truly it was of national importance. He did not, however, bound its importance by that suggestion. It is a question for the world. From Lake Superior to Puget sound! A railroad stretching from Lake Superior to Puget sound, a distance of eighteen hundred miles! To open to civilization and enterprise an empire longer and broader than western Europe from the southern vinelands of sunny Spain and Portugal on the one hand, the hyperborean forests of Norway on the other. Yes, sir, an empire equal to England, Ireland, Scotland, France, the German States, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal.

We fail, Mr. Speaker, to understand our relations to the age in which we live, and our duties to mankind, because we fail to appre ciate the grand dimensions and unimagined resources of our country. We would regard ourselves giants did we estimate ourselves in proportion to possessions so grand in a country so abounding in multiform resources, so undeveloped, and so sparsely settled.

The region through which it is proposed to construct this road, exceeding in extent the territory of all the nations I have named, also embodies more mineral wealth than they all combined ever possessed. But what is its condition? It is a wilderness. Almost every acre of it is still innocent of the tread of a tax collector. It yields our country no revenue. Along the Pacific slope a few thriving villages dot it. Some of them will one day be great cities, but they are now on the borders of a vast wilder

ness.

Sir, I appeal from the constituents of the gentleman from Chicago [Mr. WENTWORTH] on the eve of an election to posterity and ask gentlemen to view the proposed enterprise in the light in which future generations will behold it. They will look beyond the vast empire I have indicated. There lies the sleeping but broad Pacific, capable of bearing a commerce a thousand times heavier than has ever chafed the waters of the Atlantic: an ocean on which our flag is seen floating only from the masts of coasting craft or whalers wending their slow way to the northern seas in quest of hard-earned wealth; an ocean which should bear a commerce estimated by values in dollars and cents

infinitely transcending any the Atlantic has known or may ever know.

Sir, so slight is our power upon that ocean that the recently pardoned rebel Semmes with a single vessel destroyed nearly a hundred of our peaceable whalers, giving their cargoes, gathered by years of dangerous toil, to the flames or the waves. It bounds our country for more than a thousand miles, and our maritime power, which could not now protect a mile of it, should be seen and felt upon it, and our flag and white sails or the curling smoke of our steamers should shadow its every wave.

That ocean belongs to us, and we should confirm our title by the right of occupancy; for when we cast our eyes beyond its placid surface we behold what is to be our next conquest. The Old World is to be awakened by American ideas. Its unnumbered people are to be quickened, instructed, and redeemed by American enterprise. Some statisticians tell us that there are 750,000,000 people in the ancient theocratic countries of the East, which is the West to which the star of our commercial empire will next take its way. Others put the population at 1,000,000,000; and others at 1,300,000,000. There, where civilization dawned and the drowsy past yet lingers, the first impulses of a new cycle begin to be felt. Japan is yielding to the impulses of our age. The Chinese wall is crumbling away.

It was

but yesterday that I had a letter informing me that our countryman, Dr. Martin, interpreter of the American legation at Pekin, under the employment of the Chinese Government had rendered into that language our Wheaton's Law of Nations. Thus that vast and long isolated Power is preparing to enter into commercial connection with the world. The ancient civilization of Asia is giving way. At the end of thousands of centuries the doctrine of sacred castes is about to yield to the sublimer creed of man's freedom and equality. Muscular labor will soon be done there by the potent agents we now employ-coal and iron -and the genius of the buried dead, embodied in mechanism, will soon relieve their toiling millions as it now does ours. Their whole life is to be quickened by modern enterprise, and they will swell the numbers of the people on our Pacific slope.

But the inviting field of the ocean and the vast field of enterprise and reward open to us in Asia are not the only considerations that induce me to support this bill. The laboring people of every eastern city have an intense interest in this question. The safety of our country depends upon the intelligence, the virtue, the stability of our laboring people. He legislates not wisely for a democratic re public who does not make it the aim of all his acts to improve the material condition of the great laboring masses of the country. If we would perpetuate our institutions we must see that the wages of labor are so maintained that the children of the laboring man shall grow up amid the endearments of home and with the expectation that their children shall find more elegance and refinement in their homes than their parents were familiar with in childhood.

The construction of a road through our northern gold region will open a field that will be a constant refuge for the surplus labor of our eastern States. There will be a refuge for those masses of ingenious workmen who are jostled each year by lack of adjustment of their numbers to the demand for their branch of labor, or are deprived of the advantage of the skill they acquired in youth by the invention of laborsaving machinery; and instead of finding themselves as age gathers on their brow without the means of livelihood rich fields of enterprise easily reached will cheer their declining years.

But again, the depression of our laboring people springs not alone or chiefly from local causes. Beyond the Atlantic ocean there are three hundred and fifty million people in every community of which laboring men are held as raw material; and under the grasping influences of capital and the oppression of despotic Governments are held in such bondage that they

are made to subsist, even when they toil most assiduously, upon a modicum of the elements of life, upon a minimum of the amount that will keep the soul in a tolerably sound body. Escaping from this subjection they are borne to our shores by tens and hundreds of thousands each year. They are strangers in a strange land, many of them unacquainted with our language and our habits, and are unconsciously and unwillingly the means of depressing wages. But if we give to the company the means to inaugurate work on this road we will not only relieve the laboring masses of our crowded eastern cities, but furnish employment for more than the annual influx of those whom we gladly welcome, because they strengthen and enrich us by their toil. Could we drain Europe of its surplus laborers we would raise her wages as she now too often depresses ours.

What will be the true policy of the builders of this road? Will it not be to employ as laborers the heads of families, and to pay them with land and money, and settle the families along the line of the road, so that the laborer of one year will in the next farm his land and supply fresh laborers with bread? Thus will he who enters into an engagement with the company a pauper, or little better, find himself at the end of a year or two an independent farmer upon the world's great commercial highway. The managers of the road must pursue this policy, and will thus create business for and guard their road; thus, too, they will quicken the mineral and agricultural resources of the country, and give to the tax collector, whether at a port of entry or in the service of the internal revenue department, more money each year than this bill is likely to cause to be taken from the Treasury.

I ask gentlemen, in considering this subject, to rise to its dignity and grandeur. Sir, I am a devotee to freedom, but would make every country in the world tributary to my own. I delight in every manifestation of my country's power. I swell with pride as I contemplate its gigantic proportions and see how rapidly its people subdue the wilderness, and would, as I have said, make every nation tributary to its power and grandeur; but I would do it, not by oppressing any people, not by war with any Government, but by improving the condition of the masses of my countrymen and those who may become such, and showing the rulers and the people of the world how speedily free institutions exalt the poor and the oppressed of all nations into free, self-sustaining, and self-governing citizens. It is in our power to do this, and by no other means can we do it so well or quickly as by passing this supplement and vivifying the charter granted to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. And, sir, it was not without some indignation that I heard the words "swindle" and "public plunder" echoed and reëchoed through this Hall yesterday from the lips of honorable gentlemen, no one of whom had any knowledge of facts which justified the use of such language.

Sir, one of Shakspeare's characters says, on a certain occasion:

'My lady doth protest too much." And I was a little struck yesterday with the constant protestations of honesty and virtuous indignation that accompanied those denunciations.

Sir, I do not know the gentlemen who are named in or hold the charter. I believe I have been introduced in the street cars to some of them, but I know this: that gentlemen whose word I would take, from Vermont and Massachusetts and Maine, and from other States, rise and tell me that they know them, and that they are among the honored men in the communities which they represent. And I have looked in vain through the provisions of this bill to find that which should induce members to denounce such gentlemen as swindlers and public plunderers, and men who are desirous of getting their arms into the Treasury up to the elbow," I find no provision that justifies any such remarks; and it was in this connection that I asked yesterday whether it

was possible to exclude the lobby of the Central and Union Pacific railroad from the floor of the House. I did not know that it had been here, but I knew that there was not that in the provisions of the bill which could animate gentlemen to make such assaults upon men whose characters were indorsed as were those of the gentlemen who were so spoken of yesterday.

Now, sir, what does this bill propose to do? The land was granted by the original act. What is the value of that land-not its prospective value, but its present market value? There was a dispute yesterday between a gentleman from Iowa and a gentleman from Ohio as to whether the representations of its value made in one of the company's pamphlets were accurate. Sir, its value to-day as a marketable commodity is zero. It is not regarded as marketable by the Government. It has no market value. What will be its value five years hence? Who can say? I submit to gentlemen that this depends upon whether there be made into and through it an avenue or avenues by which commerce may be conducted and settlement made possible. Make two or three sections of railroad; settle the families of the laborers along its route, with the school-house, the newspaper office, and the church in their midst, and the sections of land will be among those that will yield the heaviest taxation; their gold and silver-for the country abounds in gold and silver-will flow into and replenish your exhausted Treasury. But let it remain a wilderness, as it is now, and when we shall have ceased to live it will still be untaxed-an unproductive wilderness without an appreciable market value. Therefore there might well be an honest misunderstanding or misapprehension as to its value, to be settled by the time and circumstances of the valuation.

Mr. Speaker, I again assert that I have been unable to detect any provision in this bill which looks like swindling. What are we asked to do? Why, when the stockholders shall have built twenty-five miles of road, we are to guaranty for not more than twenty years six per cent. interest upon a fixed amount of stock per mile. And what is the offset to that liability? Why, sir, all the money received by the company from the sale of lands on the southern side of the road is to be paid into the Treasury of the United States, to meet or partially meet that liability; and when fifty miles or more of the road shall have been completed, this process is to be repeated; and so, by sections of twenty-five miles, till the road shall be completed. This is the whole story.

Yet it has been said that we are asked to guaranty the interest of $57,000,000 for twenty years. This cannot be possible. Some of the land will be sold before the road will be completed. But, sir, less than twenty years, perhaps in half that time, there is to be another relief for the Government. From the completion of the road twenty-five per cent. of its gross earnings are to be paid into the Treasury of the United States, together with all the proceeds of the sale of the land along the south side of the road for eighteen hundred miles. It is impossible that we can ever be called upon to pay for a single year the interest on $57,000,000 or anything like that amount. The probabilities are that we may continue to pay something each year until the road shall reach the waters of the Missouri. I doubt whether we will ever be called on for a dollar of interest after that time; but if we shall, it will only be till the road shall have connected the commerce of the waters of the Missouri with that of those of the Columbia, pouring their way down to the Pacific. After that, if the laws of population hold with us as they have done, the Government cannot possibly be called on for a dollar.

Had any other civilized nation such an empire, opening to its people such resources, maritime, mineral, agricultural, and bucolic, would it hesitate to embark a few million dollars to develop and populate it? Would it shrink from so strengthening its commerce by an

annual contribution that would not be felt in the payments of the country or observed in announcing the total of its receipts and payments? No, sir; there is no Government that would hesitate in such a case; and I do not believe that the American Congress will fall so far short of its duty, will hold the copper cent so close to its eye, as to be unable to see the golden placer beyond, or will sanction the absurd policy of refusing to make a small annual outlay, for a brief term of years, for the development of resources the future value of which cannot be calculated.

Sir, great railroads have never been built by the capital of the stockholders. They are always built by borrowing, or if built by cap ital paid in, special laws permit dividends to be paid from the capital and charged to the construction account. Mortgages are often issued upon the franchise and survey; and the first grading is often done by means of a loan. In this connection I ask the Clerk to read a few paragraphs from the admirable letter of Quartermaster General Meigs. They are full of sound sense and the lessons of experience in the railroad development of this and other countries.

The Clerk read as follows:

"But the great reservoir from which man and all his necessary supplies are drawn is yet, and for years to come must be, the Mississippi valley and the Atlantic coast. The Territories of the Pacific coast are to be filled by emigration; they have, as yet, no great manufactories and no redundant population. The route needed for the opening and improvement of the country is the route from the East.

"The grants of land made by Congress for this object are liberal and are sufficient in time, probably,

to construct the road. But men die; nations live; men cannot take their capital, the accumulated fruit of years of industry, and devote it to the construction of a great public improvement, and wait for years for the returns. They prefer enjoying the present use of their fortunes to investing their means in enterprises which will make large returns only after their death.

"The nation is lasting. The opening of every new route, the inclosure and cultivation of every acre of wild land, contribute immediately to the revenue and resources of the nation: and no means of improving the great national domain, of increasing by its products the national revenue and prosperity, can compare in cheapness and efficacy with the opening of rapid communication by railway with these distant, healthful, and productive regions.

"The country is one fitted to be the home of a hardy race, one in which the principles of liberty and the spirit of enterprise and industry will live and bear their natural fruits."

*

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*

"A guarantee of a fixed rate of interest upon the cost of construction, to be repaid in a term of years, is a mode of assistance to their great enterprises, now common in the highly developed and heavily taxed countries of Europe. If those Governments, burdened with the immense annual expenditure of standing armies, almost as large in time of peace as we have been compelled to support in time of war, find it in the interest of their revenues thus to aid free travel and transport through countries already provided with navigable rivers and excellent wagon roads, we may confidently assume that our country will find ample reward for any such expenditure in opening up a highway for fraternal intercourse between our older communities on the Atlantic and the rising settlements on the Pacific-a highway, too, to which the inevitable laws of commerce will attract the trade of the East-the trade of China, Japan, and India-a trade along whose slow and painful track, when, it was conducted by beasts of burden. and by oars and sails, instead of by the iron horse and the occan steamship, great cities sprung up in the desert sands of Asia and on the coasts of the Mediterranean. Babylon, Nineveh, Palmyra, Bagdad, Damascus, Constantinople, Alexandria, Rome, Venice, Genoa, and London, are the outgrowths of this trade in former centuries."

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, what all other nations have done, and what they are doing, we are asked to do, except that they sometimes assume a positive and enduring liability, while there will be no ultimate liability here. The immense grant of land, with high market values imparted to it by the completion of the railroad, will indemnify us against loss by our guar antee; for is there any gentleman here who doubts that this magnificent grant of land, made available to emigrants from the East and Europe, will be adequate security for the loan of an annual amount of interest, limited as it is in this bill? To doubt that it will be ample is to deny value to the richest portion of our country, or that increased wealth will follow enterprise and industry bestowed on raw ma

terial.

Sir, it is said that this measure will, if not bankrupt the country, at least impair its credit.

Do you bankrupt a country by increasing its productive industry? Do you bankrupt a country by expanding its habitable territory and carrying civilization to a broad empire teeming with resources, but now a wilderness? No, sir, it will not bankrupt the country. It will enrich it; it will expand and strengthen its credit. In the darkest hours of the war I stood here and advocated the grant of land to the Central Pacific railroad, and I then said in substance to those who listened to me, "Let us proclaim to the nations of Europe that now, in the very agony of our country, we project and launch for completion an enterprise for which none of them have the territory. Let us show them that, while our country is torn and almost rent asunder by civil war, such is the confidence in its power and endurance that we engage in enterprises which may not bless us, but of which our posterity shall reap the rich reward, and the very commencement of which will bring to us millions of dollars with which to pay for their construction."

if they ask a grant like this for a southern Pacific railroad, my voice shall be raised to give them subsidies greater than are asked here. With the Atlantic and the Pacific connected upon our northern boundary, upon the central line embracing Illinois, Missouri, and my own great State, and on a southern route, there will be no monopoly coming here to impel gentlemen to insinuate slanders against those who may present great undertakings to the consideration of Congress and the nation.

My arguments, Mr. Speaker, have been of a general character. They may all be familiar to gentlemen. But they have been uttered in the interest of my country and mankind; and in aid of those interests I hope this bill will be passed. Mr. FARNSWORTH obtained the floor, but yielded to

Mr. STEVENS, who said: I only want a single moment. I ask the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. WENTWORTH] to withdraw his motion to refer to the Committee on Public Lands, so that I may move a substitute for the bill. He can then renew the motion. I only want the substitute before the House.

The war is over, and I now appeal to gentlemen to increase the resources of the country by developing a region greater in length and breadth and natural wealth than western Europe, and making it populous, thrifty, productive, and a market for the consumption of the products of other regions, and above all by making it the great highway of the world. Let the capitalists of England, of France, of Frankfort-on-theMain, and elsewhere, understand that their bills of exchange, representing and moving the commercial wealth of the world, traverse the continent of a democratic republic that can convert its wilderness into teeming farms and thriving cities by taking their paupers and the most abject of their people and elevating them into sovereign citizens of a free republic, and you will not impair the credit of the country. I can conceive no enterprise which would more surely guaranty the speedy and easy payment of our national debt than the development of that empire which is drained by the Missouri and the Columbia, by the application of the rule invariably practiced in building railroads, to wit, the use of credit while capital is being made productive by the construction of the road. I apprehend that the money could be obtained without this legislation. I apprehend that an application to Sir Morton Peto and other British capitalists, with a stipulation to make this road a link in a grand international road, would bring the requisite capital. But I want no international railroad binding us still more closely to the Provinces of our proudest and most powerful enemy. I do not want the British line practically brought down from the forty-eighth to the forty-second Mr. FARNSWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I dedegree of latitude. This should be an Amer-sire the House as well as the country to underican road, and should be under the guardian- stand I am in favor of a Pacific railroad. I ship of the American Congress. It should be am not only in favor of one Pacific railroad, in the hands of American men, so that if the but of several, whenever the commerce of the colonists make lateral roads, those roads shall country demands it. Two years ago, when the feed our main line, and if discriminations are original bill was passed chartering this Pacific to be made as to rights or rates over the road, Railroad Company, I voted for it. I have not they shall be made against those who are not examined the Congressional Globe with referour fellow-citizens, and not against the inter- ence to the debate that took place at that time, ests of our country or countrymen. but I have a distinct recollection when the bill was reported by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. STEVENS,] chairman of the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, some member, perhaps myself, asked whether it provided money should be drawn out of the Treasury for the construction of this road. Finally a provision, which I will read, was introduced. It is in the third section:

Mr. WENTWORTH. I wish to say that my sole object in moving to refer this bill to the Committee on Public Lands was to provoke inquiry. I am sincerely desirous that every member upon this floor shall discharge his duty, if he thinks proper, by referring to the Committee on Public Lands any amendment he has to propose. All I have desired, and all that I now desire, and all the gentlemen who are considered as the opponents of this bill desire, is that it shall be discussed. The whole trouble between us and those who are trying to force this bill through, is that they do not mean that the people shall understand anything about this bill. I am determined that they shall. I withdraw my motion.

Mr. STEVENS. I now submit a substitute for the bill.

Mr. WENTWORTH. I renew my motion. If any gentleman has an amendment to offer I am willing to yield for it to come in.

Mr. SPALDING. I give notice I shall move to lay the bill upon the table.

Mr. HIGBY. I rise to a question of order. Was not the Committee on the Pacific Railroad created for the very purpose of consider. ing this subject?

I implore gentlemen to rise above the petty and local considerations that have animated this debate so far. I ask them to contemplate this as a great national scheme.

Especially do I ask them to guard the country against a monopoly whose footfalls were, in my judgment, heard here yesterday. It is said New Jersey is but a province of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company. Men say that the Pennsylvania Central road governs that State. I have heard similar suggestions in regard to some of the States of New England and the West. I hear it stated sometimes that the Illinois Central railroad domineers the State of linois. We have granted a charter and a liberal donation to one Pacific railroad, and we must relieve ourselves from its power as a monopoly by adequately aiding other roads. I am in favor of a northern route, and should I stand here when the country is restored and the loyal men of the South are represented in this Hall,

The SPEAKER. The committee was raised

for that purpose, but the House has the right to refer any bill to any committee it pleases. The gentleman from Illinois has a right to move to refer this bill to the Committee on Public Lands or to the Committee on Appropriations or any other committee.

"And provided further, That no money shall be drawn from the Treasury of the United States to aid in the construction of the said Northern Pacific railroad."

Upon that provision being inserted in the act, myself, and I have no doubt many other gentlemen, voted for the bill who would not have done so without some such provision. But it seems that provisions of this kind inserted in the organic acts creating corporations of this sort are no protection to the Government. They come again and again, and, like Oliver Twist, they ask for more, more.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if we pass this bill, if we give this subsidy which they now demand in money, we still have no security, but they come again next session, or at the next Congress, and ask for more-more soup.

We have all kinds of agencies made use of here to put these bills through Congress. I was a little startled, and my nerves somewhat disturbed, in common with my colleagues, as I suppose, yesterday morning, after the debate had commenced upon this bill, when a messenger came around quietly to our seats, and laid before us a formidable-looking document from the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago, containing a series of resolutions adopted by that board in favor of this particular bill. Upon the envelope I noticed the stamp of the Board of Trade of that city; but they were without post-mark. They had not come through the ordinary channel of the post office, but were sent here by express to the lobby agent of this railroad company here, to be delivered to members from the West upon the eve of action upon it, for the purpose of influencing their votes.

Since that time one of my colleagues has received a letter from a gentleman in Chicago, which explains how it was manipulated and how these resolutions were procured to be passed by the Board of Trade. I will read a portion of the letter:

"CHICAGO, April 22, 1866. "COLONEL WENTWORTH: You will see by the action taken by the Board of Trade yesterday that attention has been called to the Northern Pacific railroad. Colonel Rowland sent me a letter and some papers from Washington, asking me to

directors of the board; and as present them to the went in to do so I found a Mr. Hill, from Boston, explaining the wishes of the company. After he got through I read the letter and submitted the documents, consisting of the charter, an appeal to Congress from the northwestern members, a map of the route, and an act which has been reported to the House of Representatives by the Railroad Committee to assist the construction of the Northern Pacific railroad."

It then goes on to state that the resolution was adopted, and adds :

"You understand the object of all this. It is to influence the vote of yourself and other members from the State in its favor."

Mr. WINDOM. Is not that a common thing? Mr. FARNSWORTH. The gentleman asks me if it is not a common thing. I believe it is; and it is common for any lobbyists who want to pass a particular bill to affect the commerce of the country to manipulate Boards of Trade and get these resolutions indorsing their projects.

Mr. WINDOM. The gentleman evidently does not understand that letter. This mare's nest is a great deal like some others that have been discussed about this bill. He says these papers were sent here by express from Chicago to some lobby agent to be scattered through the House. The fact is that these papers came here to Mr. Hersey, of the Post Office Department. I suppose they came by express. is in no sense a lobby agent in this House; he is employed in the post office in the House of Representatives. In that way they are placed on the desks of members of this House.

He

So far as Mr. Hill is concerned, who is represented as coming from Boston to represent this railroad company, he is no other person than the secretary of the Board of Trade of that city. The city of Boston being interested in this road and desirous of receiving the benefits to be derived from it, sends its secretary of the Board of Trade to Chicago and calls the attention of the board to the subject, just as the city of Chicago sent the secretary of its Board of Trade to the city of Boston a short time ago to influence that Board of Trade in favor of the Illinois ship-canal. That is all there is in this mare's nest.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I do not see that the explanation takes away from the force of my statement at all. A lobby man was sent from Boston to Chicago, an agent of this incorporation, for the purpose of manipulating the Board of Trade there, and there he met another lobbyman, one "Colonel' Rowland, an adventurer, who obtained the title of colonely God only knows how-an adventurer, as Î

happen to know, who has been manipulating this thing through the country for the last six months as the agent of this incorporation. A gentleman now in Chicago who had happened to meet him once in the city of Washington, got him to present the question to the Board of Trade of Chicago. He met this Mr. Hill there, accidentally, of course, who had been sent from Boston on this errand at precisely the same point of time. Between them they presented the case to the Board of Trade, an ex parte presentation, of course, and the resolutions were adopted. You all know how these Boards of Trade act upon matters of this kind. They aid and assist sister Boards of Trade of other cities in every matter that appears to be in the aid of commerce. They do not investigate with particular scrutiny the bill presented, but take it on trust as it is presented to them by the agent of the bill and adopt the resolutions offered for the purpose of influencing members of Congress. Now, I desire to say that a measure which is just in itself, and which commends itself because of its justice to the good sense and reason and patriotism of the people of the country, requires no such adjuncts; it requires no such lobbying; it does not require that these missives should be placed upon the desks of members of Congress upon the eve of voting upon the measure in order to interest them in it.

And, sir, when I find these galleries filled with lobbyists; when I find these papers coming to my desk day after day, sent in, as they are, by men who are lobbying for the bill, that is in itself enough to throw distrust upon the measure. A just measure does not require these outside influences in order to aid it or to commend it to the judgment, the good sense, and the patriotism of the Representatives of the people.

I have made a computation of the amount of money for which the United States will become liable under this bill, and I find that that amount, to be precise, is $69,015,000. That is the amount for which the Government will become liable if you pass this bill.

I propose now, sir, to examine the question and see if there is any propriety, if there is any justice, if there is any reason whatever, why the Government should assume this great responsibility.

The original charter provides that this railroad company shall have twenty miles of land

-a

strip of land twenty miles wide wherever the road passes through a State and forty miles wide where it passes through the Territories-to aid in the construction of this road. This grant was made absolute; it was an absolute grant of the land to this railroad company. What value does the company itself place on these lands? I hold in my hand the report of the first board of directors that was organized under that charter, and I will send it up to the Clerk's desk to have an extract read.

A MEMBER. It has been read.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Well, it will not hurt anybody to read it again, but I doubt if it has been read. This is the report of the first board of directors, the report of Mr. Perham, the president of the road, in reference to the value of the lands and the cost of construction. I send to the Clerk's desk and ask to have read what I have marked showing the value of the land and the cost of the road.

The Clerk read as follows:

"To construct this road, Congress, by an act of the last session, made a most munificent grant of twenty square miles of land, or twelve thousand eight hundred acres for each mile of the road through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oregon, and forty square miles, or twenty-five thousand six hundred acres, for each mile of the road through Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington Territories, making an aggregate of forty-seven million three hundred and sixty thousand acres for the whole grant.

"These lands, when the road shall be built and the business fairly started, including town and station sites, would certainly average ten dollars per acre, making the sum of $473,600,000.

"Supposing the construction of the road should cost $60,000 per mile, the entire cost at this rate would be $120,000,000, leaving to the shareholders an excess of clear profit from the lands alone of $353,600,000.

"This estimate of $60,000 per mile as the cost of the

road was liberal, in view of the vast quantities of material for its construction found along the route, including exhaustless mines of iron of the best quality, which could be turned into rails.

And the estimate at ten dollars per acre as the value of the land is reasonable, when those lands are compared with the grant made for the construction of the Illinois Central railroad.

"The lands granted to this company have not been culled and selected, but are emphatically new lands, while the Illinois grant was of lands which had been many years in the market, much of them having been graded down to twelve and a half cents per acre; yet no sooner was the road completed than those shilling lands at once rose in value to twenty dollars, thirty dollars, fifty dollars, and even $100 per acre, and from them that road was now in successful operation.

"With perseverance and energy, backed by the means at their command, this road could casily be completed and in full operation, with a telegraph

accompanying it, within seven years; and at this rate, costing, as already estimated, $120,000,000, the proceeds of the lands would yield to the shareholders, after reimbursing the whole of the original outlay, more than one hundred per cent. upon the capital, leaving out of view the earnings of the road."

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The House will notice from this report of the railroad company that they estimate the cost of constructing this road at $60,000 per mile. And they further say, that after the road is built and equipped, there will be left a clear profit to the railroad of $353,600,000, without any subsidy from the Government in the shape of money.

Gentlemen say that this report was got up when they wanted to sell out. I presume it was. And so the other report was got up when they wanted to get some money from the United States Treasury. And if you cannot rely upon the reports of the railroad company itself, as to the value of the franchises of this road, I would like some gentleman to tell me upon what we can rely.

made in 1860.

I also hold in my hand the report of the Committee on the Pacific Railroad of this House, The report was made by Hon. Cyrus Aldrich, of Minnesota, a man well acquainted with the value of these lands, and of this route, and who, I think, is one of the corporators of this road. In that report the committee say:

"The undersigned, the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, do not doubt that much of this distance can be built for $25,000 per mile, including a full equip

ment.'

Now, if you can build a good portion of this road at $25,000 per mile, instead of $60,000, as the railroad company estimates, and if the rate of $60,000 a mile would leave a net prod uct of over $350,000,000, what would the net product be at the rate of $25,000 per mile?

Mr. GRINNELL. I do not believe that estimate.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I believe it just as much as I believe anything presented to this House upon this subject, for it is official in some respect. We have not had much else that was official. I do not know why we should not believe this as well as any of these other papers.

Mr. STEVENS. If the statement the gentleman has had read is true, would it not be an excellent security for the guarantee asked?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Well, if it is not true that the land is worth anything like the estimate, then I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. STEVENS] what security you would then have. The lands are certainly worth something or they are not.

it says.

Now, let us turn over the pages of another pamphlet. Gentlemen say this was got up for the purpose of selling out; but let us take up a pamphlet which was got up for the purpose of securing votes in this House and see what It was read yesterday at the request of the gentleman from Ŏhio, [Mr. DELANO; but I will call the attention of the House to it again. The bill under consideration provides that the Government, for guarantying this interest, shall be secured by a lien upon the lands on the south side of the road; or rather a lien upon the proceeds of the sales of those lands. Now, in the pamphlet in which this company appeals to Congress for further aid this land is estimated at a value of $32,000 per mile. And mark you, that estimate includes only one half the land that we have granted to this com

pany; they estimate the land upon one side of the road only at $32,000 per mile; and that is the amount of stock upon which they ask the Government to guaranty the interest. Well, sir, if the land upon the south side of the road is worth at the rate of $32,000 per mile, I suppose the land on the north side of the road is worth that also. I suppose no gentleman will claim that there is any difference in the value of these lands, between those on the south side of the road and those on the north side of the road. Then the lands already granted to this company are worth at the rate of $64,000 a mile.

Well, sir, if they have a grant of lands worth $64,000 per mile, why, in the name of common sense, are they asking Congress for aid in the shape of money? Sir, I am not going to contradict the statement of this railroad company. I shall not take issue with them as to the value of this land. I am inclined to think that the lands are worth the amount named, or very near it. Then the question recurs, why do they want this subsidy or guarantee? Why, sir, they want it for the same reason that the other company wanted land. They want it for the purpose of speculation. They want it that they in turn, like the other company, may sell out.

The gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. WOODBRIDGE,] in giving yesterday a history of the transfer of this charter from the one company to the other, stated that the present company were induced to make this purchase because efforts to buy this charter were being made by capitalists and others in Canada, who were promised the aid of capital from England to construct this road. Well, sir, if their charter, without any such assistance as this bill will give them, was so valuable as to induce capi talists in Canada to attempt its purchase, it will of course become more valuable when this company get this further aid from the Government of the United States. Capitalists in Canada, England, or anywhere else do not seek to buy a railroad charter unless they think there is money in it. They do not engage in such undertakings for the good of the country. Men do not build railroads out of regard for the wel fare of the country. Capital does not seek investment upon the principle of benevolence. You cannot find any benevolence in a man's pocket. The pocket nerve is not a benevolent nerve. It does not vibrate to the touch of char ity. The pocket nerve is a sensitive nerve. It is, too, a selfish nerve. Capital can only be tempted to make investment where it will be a benefit to the holder. These men who are lobbying here are not lobbying for the good of the country. I never knew a man to come to Washington and lobby for a bill of this kind on account of the interest which he took in the welfare of the great West, although he may have made that a pretense. We find men from New England exhibiting suddenly a marked interest in the welfare of the poor West, showing a great anxiety that the West should be benefited.

Mr. DAWES. Let me suggest to the gentleman that ever since I can remember New England men have been helping to build railroads

in the West.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. But the gentleman will not tell me that New England men who have helped to build railroads in Illinois have done so for the sake of Illinois. Massachusetts capital has gone to Illinois and sought investment there for the sake of Massachusetts capital. I know that the people of New England are a great and benevolent people. I know that they are distinguished for their works of charity, which are numerous and frequent. I have great regard and great veneration for New England. I love it, not only because it is the home of my ancestors, but because its virtues entitle it to respect and reverence. But, sir, the moneyed men of New England are like moneyed men everywhere else; and when they invest money in a railroad project they do it because they think it will pay. They do not do it from benevolent motives. So, too, when the people of Canada, or any other place, offer

their money for the purchase of a railroad charter, they do it because they think there is money in it. They do not in such matters act from motives of benevolence.

Sir, if the people of New England are so full of regard for the interests of the people of the West, I advise them to invest their capital rather in the construction of a canal which shall furnish transportation for some of our grain, relieving our plethoric and overburdened granaries. By such a work as that, millions of people would be benefited where only thousands would receive advantage from this Northern Pacific railroad.

Mr. DAWES. We propose to do both. Mr. FARNSWORTH. "Well, sir, the Treasury is not just now in a condition to warrant us in trying to do everything; and as there is sometimes a choice of evils, so there is a choice of benefits. When we cannot do all at once the various works which commend themselves to our judgment by the good results expected from them, we must select that which will accomplish the greatest good, and do that first.

Why, Mr. Speaker, many people seem to suppose it is practicable and feasible for the Government to undertake to build three separate railroads to the Pacific ocean. The argu ment is made here, inasmuch as we have granted subsidies to the Central Pacific railroad, that therefore we should treat all others in like manner. I do not see the force of that argument. Whether it was right and proper or not to make the grant to the Central Pacific railroad does not affect the propriety of making this grant. If it were wrong to make the grant to the Central Pacific railroad that does not make it right to make a grant to the Northern Pacific railroad. If it were right to make the grant to the Central Pacific railroad it does not follow that therefore we should make a grant to any other.

In my judgment the country does not demand it, nor is it feasible or practicable at the present time to undertake the building of more than one road to the Pacific. I do not believe it is practicable or feasible to build a railroad four or five hundred miles through a country not inhabited. I do not believe you can ever build or run a road over a country for that distance where there are no inhabitants. As fast as the country becomes inhabited, as fast as it is peopled, then they may want a railroad. As fast as it is peopled the lands will come into market and become valuable. But to undertake at the present time to put roads through, to force them through in the short space of time contemplated by this act, is impractica

ble.

Nor do I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the commerce of the country at the present time demands more than one road. I think the Government had better with the $17,000,000 called for by this act dig a ship-canal across the Isthmus to connect the waters of the Atlantic with the Pacific. It certainly would be better to do that than to build a second road. Heavy freights will not go by land to the Pacific. Heavy freights will seek water communication. They will always be transported by water.

Mr. WENTWORTH. I understand that in the summer season there is to be water communication by this line across Lake Superior, and that in the winter season it is to be north of Lake Superior.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. There is to be water communication in the summer season only. It will be very much better to build a ship-canal across the Isthmus, for then you will have water communication all the year round for ships to sail from ocean to ocean.

Another reason why I think it is not necessary nor practicable to undertake the construction of another Pacific railroad at this time is this: it requires only three hundred miles of rail to make a complete line of water and rail communication from Salt Lake City to Portland in the State of Oregon. All you require is the construction of three hundred miles of railroad

from Salt Lake to the head of navigation on the Columbia river. If it is necessary, therefore, that we shall have a railroad to Oregon and the waters of the Columbia river, it is much more feasible to build a branch road from Salt Lake City to Salt Lake, and then from the other end of Salt Lake extending through to connect with the head of navigation on the Columbia river. There you have a good country. Such a route passes through the Territory of Idaho, a rich, growing, and flourishing Territory. You get

then from the main stem or the main trunk of the Central Pacific railroad two arms to the Pacific ocean, one to San Francisco and the other to Portland, Oregon.

But at the same time I think it is not practicable or feasible to undertake at this time to build more than one road to the Pacific. I repeat what I said before, I am in favor at the earliest practicable moment when the country demands it of building two, four, or ten railroads to the Pacific. I am willing to make a liberal grant of land to aid in the construction of those roads. But I am not willing to give my vote to render the Government liable to the extent of $69,000,000 in the present deranged financial condition of the country. I am not willing to put the Government under a liability of $69,000,000 for what I consider at the present time unnecessary.

This is aside from my objection to this bill, which is that it is a speculative measure. We were told by the chairman when he reported this bill two years ago that land and land alone would build this road; that this company only wanted land; that they would not call upon the Government for money.

We find that that company was organized; and we are told now, not by authority, but by what I suppose may be regarded as the authorized mouth-piece of the company here, by the gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. WOODBRIDGE,] that that company has sold out their charter for what little money they had expended. But I have seen no official report of any moneys expended by this company. I have seen no report of any survey made by the company. I suppose it does take money to raise the wind, as it is called. I suppose money is expended in getting up companies, in getting their charters, in lobbying, in traveling over the country to procure the indorsement of Boards of Trade. If these are the expenditures to which the gentleman referred, to reimburse which they sold out this charter, I wish he would say so; but as for any other expenditure in the way of survey or the locating of the road or the commencement of work upon the road, we have certainly no knowledge of it.

They have not commenced the work. That is shown by the provision which they have inserted in this bill that the commencement of a survey in good faith shall be taken to be the commencement of the work within the meaning of the bill. The original bill provided that the charter should become void and that they should forfeit all right under it if they did not commence the work within two years. "Work"-it is generally understood what that means. To commence making the railroadthat is commencing the work. They come now to Congress and ask that we shall insert in their charter a provision that when they send out a surveyor in good faith to commence the survey that shall be considered a commencement of the work, although they may not break ground for years afterward.

Now, sir, I would like to know, I wish some gentleman would tell me, who is to be the judge as to when they commence this survey in good faith; who is to be the judge of the bona fides of this survey? Is it the President of the United States or the president of the company, or is it Congress? And if Congress is to judge of this, upon what evidence are we to base our judgment? The commencement of the survey in good faith? Why, I suppose, then, if they hire a surveyor and send him out to survey a mile of land on the supposed route, it is such a commencement of the survey of the road as is sufficient to save the charter.

Mr. HENDERSON. That would not be in good faith.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. My friend says that would not be in good faith. Sir, who is to judge whether it is or not? The surveyor goes on, and the company says it is in good faith. The surveyor produces his instruments and chains; you see they are surveying. Who is to judge of the good faith? Is my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. DAWES] to judge of the survey?

Mr. DAWES. The American people are to judge.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The great American people are to judge, says the gentleman from Massachusetts. Upon what evidence are they to pass their judgment? Here is a question of forfeiture. They shall forfeit their charter it they do not commence the work in good faith. They commence a survey, and whether it is in good faith or not nobody can tell but them selves.

Mr. DRIGGS. If the survey is never made and the work never commenced, of course there will be no obligation on the part of the Government to issue the bonds. I cannot see how that affects the question.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I see how it affects the question before us distinctly. I have not the slightest idea that this company propose to build this road. I suppose they come here to get this provision put into this bill in order to sell out their obligation in turn to some other company perhaps more greedy still than themselves. The question might have been asked two years ago, who will buy this? We find it is bought for $160,000, although no ground has been broken. Now, if this charter was worth $160,000 before a spade was put into the ground, before a mile of the road was located, what would it be worth after the Government assumes $70,000,000 of indebtedness to aid in its construction, and after we all know these other provisions are in the bill which will give them a still longer time to operate? Why, sir, it will be worth, as they say themselves, millions upon millions. I would rather have this franchise after this bill has passed for speculation than to have the property of William B. Astor or the gentleman from New York, [Mr. DODGE.] [Laughter.]

It is for this reason I do not believe there is any good faith in this company. At the same time I am not attacking the officers here, nor do I propose to do so. I believe many of them are good men, but they have been manipulated like these Boards of Trade and these men who have been going through the country.

Mr. HENDERSON. I would ask the gen tleman if he did not in times past have a personal difficulty with Colonel Rowland.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I am not aware that if there were anything of that sort it would have anything to do with this bill; but I assure the gentleman that there is nothing of that kind. I simply know from personal observation that this man Rowland is a mere adventurer, and I state it upon my responsibility as a member of this House, and can prove it, either "here or elsewhere." [Laughter.] I use the words either in a แ technical" or an untechnical sense. [Laughter.] I have only spoken of him because he has been the agent of this enterprise, and when they come to me through such unclean channels I am not going to vote for schemes of this kind. It makes me distrust the whole thing.

Mr. HARDING, of Illinois. I think I understood that there was security for the money advanced by the Government in the lands granted upon the southern side of the road. Now, I dispute that. I have examined the bill, and according to my understanding there is no security for the Government contained in it. The bill contains no limit upon the terms of sale of those lands, nor as to the character of the persons who may buy them, nor as to the rates at which they are to be sold. If they should be sold to individuals connected with the corporation, it would be a substantial