sibility." Mr. Trumbull was inclined to scoff at this solicitude, and reminded the senators from Wisconsin and California that he presumed they, like himself, "have experience enough to know that when $16,000 a mile is given by this government and the lands for miles on each side of the road, these branches will not be built over the shortest route. This amount of money and land will more than pay for the construction of these roads in those localities. It will be a speculation to build them." Mr. Trumbull, in order to avoid the state rights difficulty, proposed that the road should begin at some point on the Missouri river, to be fixed by the President of the United States, between the 40th and the 43d degrees of latitude. In order to give the branch roads from the East a slice of the subsidy, this proposition was modified so as to fix the initial point of the line 250 miles west of the natural place for starting on the banks of the great natural river boundary between "the East" and "the great West" which was to be traversed.
   Senator Wade of Ohio dropped into prophecy by the confident assertion as to the subsidy that "the government will never have to pay a single dollar of it. It is only a pledge of its credit for that amount; and yet some gentlemen would hazard an enterprise more grand, more magnificent, more beneficial, and more honorable to this nation than any other that ever entered into the conception of man."
   The secession of the southern states facilitated the passage of the first bill, July 1, 1862, by ending sectional controversy of the same nature as that which had retarded the passage of the bill for the organization of the territory. This act provided for the construction of a road from Omaha to San Francisco. A California company already organized -- the Central Pacific railroad company -- was to build the road to the eastern border of that state, and a new corporation, the Union Pacific railroad company, was to build all the rest of the road. Besides this main line, the Union Pacific company was required to construct a branch from Sioux City, joining the main line at a point no farther west than the 100th meridian; and the Leavenworth, Pawnee & Western, afterwards the Kansas Pacific company, was required to build a line from Kansas City to a point on the Union Pacific no farther west than the 100th meridian. By the act of July 3, 1866, the Kansas Pacific company was permitted to join the Union Pacific at a point not more than fifty miles west of the extension of a line north from Denver; and under the act of 1869 the Denver Pacific line between Denver and Cheyenne was the result. While the land grant applied along the whole line from Kansas City by way of Denver, to Cheyenne, the bonds applied only to the distance originally intended to connect with the main line, which was fixed at 319 15/16 miles. The St. Joseph or Atchison branch was to be an extension of the Hannibal & St. Joseph line, and to be built by way of Atchison westward to some point on what is now known as the main line, but not farther west than the 100th meridian; or it might connect with the Kansas line upon the same terms as were given to the Union Pacific. Its subsidy was to extend only to the distance of a hundred miles, and so the road was built direct from Atchison west to Waterville, Kansas, and there ended where its subsidy gave out. The line to connect Leavenworth with the Kansas main line was built from the city named to Lawrence; but it was not subsidized.
   By the act of 1862 a subsidy of alternate sections in a strip of land ten miles wide on each side of the track was granted to the Union Pacific road and its two principal branches -- from Sioux City and from Kansas City -- 33,000,000 acres in all. In addition to this subsidy the credit of the United States in the form of United States bonds was loaned in the following amounts: For the parts of the line passing over level country, east of the Rocky mountains and west of the Sierra Nevada mountains, $16,000 per mile; for the 150 miles west of the eastern base of the Rocky mountains and the like distance eastward from the western base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, $48,000 per mile; and for that part of the line running over the plateau region between the two mountain chains named, $32,000 per mile. These bonds ran for thirty years and drew six per cent interest,

payable semi-annually. They were not a gift, but a loan of credit, and were to be paid by the company to the United States at their maturity.
   The capital stock of the company consisted of $100,000,000 divided into shares of $1,000. When 2,000 shares were subscribed and $10 per share paid in, the company was to be organized by the election of not less than thirteen directors and other usual officers. Two additional directors were to be appointed by the President of the United States. It was also provided that the President should appoint three commissioners to pass upon and certify to the construction of the road as a basis for the issue of the bonds and lands. The line of the road was to begin at a point on the 100th meridian "between the south margin of the Republican river and the north margin of the Platte river, in the territory of Nebraska at a point to be fixed by the President of the United States after actual surveys." The company was also required to construct a line from a point on the western boundary of the state of Iowa, to be fixed by the President of the United States, to connect with the initial point of the main line on the 100th meridian. A race in construction was inspired by the provision that either of the two companies, the Union Pacific or the Central Pacific, might build past the specified place of meeting -- the California boundary line -- if it should reach the line before the arrival of the other. The act required also the construction of a telegraph line with each of these lines of railway.
   The Union Pacific project was an incongruous and most unfortunate partnership between private and public interests, and from first to last political influences and considerations were vicious and demoralizing alike to the company and to the government. It is a great pity that neither private capital nor the federal government felt prepared to undertake the enterprise alone. There should have been distinct private ownership or distinct public ownership, and, in spite of our unpreparedness, relatively, for public business of this kind, the latter would have been better than the unnatural partnership or over-lordship.
   At the end of two years Congress had been influenced to greatly change the terms under which the company had undertaken to build the road. By the act of July 2, 1864, the company was permitted to mortgage the road to an amount equal to the loan of the United States bonds, and the lien or security of the latter was subordinated to the mortgage; the land grant was doubled, and the reservation, in the first act, of coal and iron lands from the grant was given up; the number of directors to be elected was increased to fifteen and of government directors to five. The Kansas Pacific company desired, and doubtless expected to build its line southwesterly from Denver when it sought and obtained, through the act of 1866, release from the requirement to unite with the Union Pacific line at or eastward of the 100th meridian; but it was frustrated in this design by a provision in the same act that its line must join the Union Pacific within fifty miles west of Denver. By this provision the Union Pacific was fixed as the main line; and thus, finally, was settled a struggle for supremacy between partisans of the northern route and those of southern routes which had been openly begun by Douglas in the introduction of his bill of 1844 for the organization of Nebraska territory, and which was meant, as he said, as notice that this line of travel should not be further obstructed by being used as the dumping ground for southern, or other tribes of Indians.
   While proposed southern routes from the Missouri river to the mountains were good, that of the Platte valley, in point of directness and uniform easy grade, was far the best; and political influences and economic conditions just then peculiarly reinforced nature in favor of the northern route. On account of secession, the southern interest had little or no influence in Congress, and the country chiefly tributary to the southern route was demoralized where it was not devastated by war. On the other hand, the great natural Platte river route was in direct line westward with the imperial tier of states of which Chicago had already become the commercial entrepot, and at least four trunk lines of railway from that great central point would naturally reach the

Missouri river north of the line between Iowa and Missouri and within reach of the influence of the Platte route magnet. The act of 1864 provided that any company having a line reaching Sioux City from the east might build the Sioux City & Pacific branch. In order to avail themselves of lands then more valuable than those lying across the Missouri, the builders, John I. Blair and Oakes Ames, kept the road on the Iowa side to a point opposite Blair, and then made the connection at Fremont. This branch was never a part of the Union Pacific system, and in 1884 it fell into the control of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad company.

THOMAS C. DURANT

Chief promoter, Union Pacific railroad

   There was a bitter controversy in Congress over the passage of the amendatory act of 1864, and the opposition in the House was led by two eminent members, E. B. Washburne of Illinois, a republican, and William H. Holman of Indiana, a democrat. Mr. Holman demanded that provision should be made for carrying the property and troops of the United States free of charge, and he predicted that the government would get nothing more in return for its aid. Mr. Washburne was unsparing in denunciation of the bill, and especially of the famous section 10, which subordinated the government loan to the lien of the mortgage bonds. He denounced this change as "the most monstrous and flagrant attempt to overreach the government and the people that can be found in all the legislative annals of the country." He questioned that there had been compliance with the provision of the charter limiting the stock held by one person to two hundred shares, or that some of the directors were bona fide holders of the amount of stock required by law, or of any stock at all; and he said that it was notorious that a single individual owned or controlled a majority of the stock. Then, warming to his subject, he continued:

   While the government is liable for $100,000,000 and has donated millions upon millions of acres of public land to this great work, yet this entire organization has gone into the hands of parties who have put in but a trifle over 1 per cent of the whole amount that the government is liable for. And the government is utterly without any controlling voice in the direction of this company, as it has but two directors out of the whole number. Does it not seem, therefore, that the government "left out in the cold" in the arrangement as is it now stands? But gentlemen point us to the long list of the present board of directors who are men of well-known integrity and of capital; but I desire to ask what number of these men of integrity and capital who appear in the list as directors are active and managing men, controlling and directing the action of the company? Such directors as Genera Dix . . . . have either resigned their positions or refused to take any part in the management of the affairs of the company, while the real management is in the bands of a set of Wall street stock-jobbers who are using this great engine for their own private ends. regardless of what should be the great object of the company or of the interests of the country. Who are the men who are here to lobby this bill through? Have the men of high character and of a national reputation, whose names were, at an earlier period, connected with this enterprise, been here animated by a commendable public spirit and by motives of patriotism, to ask us to pass this bill? I have not heard of such men being here for that purpose, but on the other hand the work of "putting the bill through," has gone into the hands of such men as Samuel Hallett and George Francis Train -- par nobile fratrum.

   The law of 1862 named 153 commissioners, distributed among twenty-four states and the territory of Nebraska, whose duty was merely to take the preliminary steps for organizing the company; and as soon as 2,000 shares of

stock had been subscribed, and $10 per share paid in, the commissioners were to call a meeting of the subscribers, who should elect the directors of the company. The commissioners named for Nebraska were Augustus Kountze, Gilbert C. Monell, and Alvin Saunders of Omaha; W. H. Taylor of Nebraska City; and T. M. Marquett of Plattsmouth. It is worth noting, as an illustration of a phase of political conditions at that time, that these commissioners from Nebraska were all active politicians of the republican party. The names of the commissioners were supplied largely by the members of Congress from the various states and Senator Harlan of the adjoining state of Iowa was active in promoting these preliminary arrangements. By the 29th of October, 1863, 2,177 shares of stock had been subscribed, and the company was organized by the election of thirty directors and of John A. Dix, president; Thos. C. Durant, vice president; Henry V. Poor, secretary; and John J. Cisco, treasurer. These officers were all residents of New York. Augustus Kountze was the Nebraska representative on the elected board of directors.
   Cautious capital merely played, about the tempting subsidy bait, and "this most gigantic work that was ever performed by man on the face of the earth" was begun, and pushed for some months, on a paid-up capital of $218,000. "The crowd" waits on the hither side of the Alpine barrier which crosses the way to most great discoveries and unusual achievements; and they have been accomplished when some unusual man steps* out and declares, "There shall be no Alps." Thomas C. Durant of New York was the intrepid financial founder of the Union Pacific railroad. He subscribed his own means and induced his friends to subscribe by agreeing to, assume their subscription if they should become dissatisfied with their investment; then he proceeded to build the road, and ground was broken at Omaha, December 2, 1863. In its momentous promise this ceremonial stands as the great event of Omaha history, While the realization, too, has been great, it has yet been disappointing, because neither the keen vision of the projectors of that noble enterprise nor the sharp insight of the pioneer citizen foresaw the vicissitudes through which it was destined to pass to completion and through subsequent operations, or, in particular, the comparatively early invasion of Union Pacific territory, in Nebraska and elsewhere, by those very lines from the east which were counted on as its feeders, and which have divided the expected imperial commercial prestige of the terminus by building up formidable rivals. The keenest business vision could not foresee, nor could the liveliest imagination picture the prodigies which the new-born agency of steam and electricity, in the hands of American daring and skill were so soon to perform. It was indeed incomprehensible that before this miracle of the first transcontinental road should have developed into good working order the building of rivals would become a commonplace occurrence.
   At the ceremony of breaking the first ground, A. J. Hanscom presided. Mayor B. E. B. Kennedy, Governor Saunders, and George Francis Train used the shovel, and these three, and also Dr. Gilbert C. Monell, Andrew J. Poppleton, Augustus Kountze, and Judge Adam V. Larimer of Council Bluffs made speeches. Congratulatory dispatches were read from President John A. Dix, Vice President Dr. Thomas C. Durant, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by John Hay, his secretary; William H. Seward, secretary of state; George Opdyke, mayor of New York; J. M. Palmer, mayor of Council Bluffs; and Richard Yates, governor of Illinois. Brigham Young, then beginning to be imperator of a great industrial people, sent this message: "Let the hands of the honest be united to aid the great national improvement." The shrewd Mormon foresaw the immense enhancement of property values which would follow the passage of the road through the city of which he was founder and virtual proprietor. He gave his full share of aid in construction, through the brawn of his followers, until he saw that the company was bent on giving his city the go-by, and then, at the critical point in the great race, he withheld his aid till he saw that the Central Pacific, too,

intended to reject his suit, and he must be content with a stub connection from Ogden.
   That there was no lack of appreciation of the momentous significance, to Omaha especially, of the formal opening of this great highway is shown by the address of Mr. Poppleton.
   A few days after the delivery of this address Mr. Poppleton was engaged, through Mr. Peter A. Dey, chief engineer, as attorney for the Union Pacific railroad company. This small beginning developed into the general solicitorship of the company, which office Mr. Poppleton held until the date of his resignation, February 1, 1888.
   The Nebraskian tells us that Train closed the exercises with "the raciest, liveliest, best natured, and most tip-top speech ever delivered west of the Missouri"; and then the editor speculates in this strain: "An encyclopedia of all knowledge, a walking library, a modern miracle is G. F. T. Is he played out? Has he gone to seed? What is to be the future application of his brilliant talents? These are questions which Mr. Train should seriously and solemnly ponder . . . He has visited all the countries of the world, and, having a prodigious memory, has probably a larger fund of available practical knowledge than any man in America; and he is still a young man -- but thirty-three years of age. The Train of ideas sometimes lacks the coupling chains."
   The Union to the conditions of the act of Congress on the 27th of June, 1863, and the immediate promoters of the road plunged into the solicitude and struggle for the completion of the first 100 miles within the two-years limit of the act. They were further troubled by the provision of the amendatory act of 1864 which permitted the Kansas company to continue its line to meet the line of the Central Pacific, if, when it should reach the 100th meridian, "the Union Pacific shall not be proceeding in good faith to build the said railroad through the territory." The act provided that when the three commissioners appointed by the President should certify that forty miles of the road were built and equipped, the proper Pacific company filed its assent amount of bonds and the proportionate amount of the land grant should be issued to the company. In the spring of 1864 Durant began the great task of building this section. The small paid-up stock subscription and the proceeds of a credit of over $200,000 were soon exhausted, and such parts of the stock of building material and rolling stock as could be temporarily spared were sold, so that construction might proceed. The lucid statement of Peter A. Dey, the widely known engineer, contains information and explanation, needed at this juncture. This first survey of Engineer Dey's was abandoned after a considerable sum -- probably more than a third of the first paid up capital -- had been expended on its somewhat difficult grade, and its substitute, the devious ox-bow route, was used for years, with all the disadvantages of a bad grade of about three miles, until the Lane cut-off was built. When the first forty miles of the road should be completed the federal government would lay and bestow its first golden subsidy egg. On the plea of necessity, on the 4th of May, 1864, a committee was appointed on the part of the company to contract for finishing 100 miles of road. Though the act of July 2, 1864, doubling the land subsidy, followed in the meantime, Durant, on the 8th of August, received from H. M. Hoxie a proposition for the famous, or notorious, contract by the terms of which he was to build the 100 miles for $50,000 per mile; and on the 4th of the following October the contract was extended to cover the whole line to the 100th meridian -- 247.45 miles.
   The "Defense of Oakes Ames" -- remarkable for its skillful presentment and impressive eloquence --which was read in the House of Representatives, February 25, 1873, opens with a clear statement of conditions which led up to this contract. Though this defense was ostensibly the Credit Mobilier sponsor's personal plea, it was written by Andrew J. Poppleton; and though, being the attorney of the Ames interests, he may not have been wholly impartial, yet on account of the local viewpoint of its author the statement is very useful for the present purpose.

   While Durant was the practical beginner of the Union Paciffc (sic) road, and but for his determined spirit and financial resources its actual construction would have been long delayed, yet the weight of opinion is that he regarded the enterprise as the exploit of the builders, and had neither confidence nor interest in it as a practicable highway; and so he sold his interest in the company immediately after the two lines were joined at Promontory. He is therefore persistently charged with treating its resources during the construction period as an orange which is made to be sucked. Hoxie, who was an irresponsible employee of the company which operated the ferry between Council Bluffs and Omaha, had agreed, before the extension of his contract to include 247.45 miles, to turn it over to Durant and his friends; and in October, 1864, Durant subscribed $600,000, Cornelius S. Bushnell, $400,000, Charles A. Lambard, $100,000, Henry S. McComb, $100,000, and H. W. Gray, $200,000, toward carrying out the contract which they assumed. But just as responsible financiers lacked confidence and courage to subscribe to the enterprise at the outset, so these friends of Durant lost courage when they came to realize the tremendous liabilities they, as partners, had incurred, and some of them refused to pay more than the first installment of their subscriptions; and again the enterprise hung on the single thread of Durant's superb nerve. In the meantime construction lagged and hope long deferred made sick the hearts of the expectant beneficiaries of the road in Nebraska.
   The most important and exciting episode in the building of the Union Pacific railroad as affecting Nebraska interests, was the change from the nearly direct route from Omaha to the Elkhorn river in favor of the curve, or ox-bow line down the Mud creek valley nearly to Bellevue, and then northwest following West Papillion creek to a point of convergence with the original line, between four and five miles from the place of crossing the Elkhorn. The point of divergence from the original route is three miles west of the starting point in Omaha; from the diverging point to the point where the lines again converge is fourteen miles; by the ox-bow line the distance between these two points is increased by nine miles. At the outset, Peter A. Dey, engineer in charge of construction, surveyed six lines out of Omaha, and in a letter to Colonel Simpson July 12, 1865, he described them as follows:

    1st. From the mouth of the Platte river, follow the valley; 2nd, from Bellevue up the West Papillion; 3rd, the south or located line from Omaha west; 4th, the north line from Omaha, up the Military creek, down Saddle creek into the Papillion, up its valley to a point nearly east of Fremont, and down Plum

SILAS SEYMOUR

Consulting engineer Union Pacific railroad

creek to the valley of the Platte; 5th, from Florence westerly; 6th, from a point on Fish creek, between De Soto and Cuming City, and across into the fourth line.
   On the 4th of November, 1864, President Lincoln approved of the location of the first 100 miles of the line in accordance with the authority of the act of Congress of 1862. On the 6th of April, 1865, the Union Pacific company formally decided, without permission or approval of the President, to abandon the original line and adopt the ox-bow line. On the 12th of May President John A. Dix made formal application for approval of the change of route to the President of the