United States. In this application Mr. Dix stated that the company had expended about $100,000 toward building the original line west of the point of divergence and which had been abandoned, and about $250,000 on the new line; and that the company was then expending about $2,500 a day on the amended line. This was not the only important instance in which the company first appropriated what it wanted and afterwards asked permission of the federal government, its ostensible master, to do so. With this request was filed a report in its favor by Silas Seymour, consulting engineer of the company, and a favorable letter by Jesse L. Williams, a government director and member of the locating committee. Seymour found that the maximum grade westerly to the point of divergence was 66 feet per mile, and as this portion of the line -- about three miles -- "is now nearly graded, it is not proposed to change it at present, but it is assumed that it will be changed hereafter to conform with the maximum grade that may be adopted in ascending the valley of the Papillion." Mr. Seymour calculated that it would cost $144,490 more to construct the 14.2 miles on the original line between the points of divergence and convergence than to build the 23.2 miles of the new line between the same points. He contended also that the company would be justified in adding 100 per cent to the length of this portion of the road in order to secure a maximum of 40, instead of 66- and 80-foot grades per mile, assuming an equal cost of construction for the two lines. Mr. Dey in a statement made to Colonel Simpson, July 12, 1865, pins Seymour to this plausible proposition: "It seems to me that this question should have been stated (as an examination of the profile shows the grading to be done on the line Mr. Seymour advises) whether, with the maximum grades of 66 feet going west, and 79.2 going east on either side of this divergence, it would be expedient for the company to increase the length of their road 9 miles in going 14 to get rid of the light grades on portions of the intermediate 14 miles?" And then he proceeds:

    On page 4 of Mr. Seymour's report he uses the following language: "The maximum grade ascending westerly between station no. 0 and station no. 150, the proposed point of divergence, is also 66 feet per mile; the portion of the line is nearly graded, and it is proposed not to change it at present, but it is assumed that it will be changed hereafter to correspond with the maximum grade that may be adopted in ascending the valley of the Papillion. This question is reserved for future consideration, With a view, however, to such future change it is recommended that for the present as little money as practicable be expended in grading the valley of Mud creek, between station 150 and a point where a line with moderate grades in both directions would naturally leave this valley to enter the valley of the Missouri river."
   I can interpret this language, guarded as it is, in no other way than that Mr. Seymour advises the company to use his route for the present, and until the business of the road is increased sufficiently to require lighter grades, then to make the eastern outlet at or near Bellevue.
   If this be the legitimate meaning, it is clear that the eastern part of his line is merely a temporary accommodation to Omaha, and the whole line out of any fair comparison, except as a part of a line from Bellevue to the Elkhorn river, and the discussion must come back to the located route from Omaha and the line from Bellevue.
   On these lines, before the company had taken any action, I committed myself most unequivocally, as an engineer, in favor of the latter, as you will see by reference to my report.
   If the company erred in their location, it was with the facts fully before them; how far outside influences, importance of points interested, political considerations, prospective eastern connections, or other causes weighed with them I can not tell.
   The location was filed, and the business interests of western Iowa and Nebraska began to accommodate themselves to it; then the change was ordered. Its effect has been to unsettle everything, and leave a deep feeling of distrust as to what may follow.
   It makes comparatively little difference how questions of this kind are settled provided that when done they are settled permanently; and although a change of terminal point and route would work financial ruin to many men, and render property in these towns utterly valueless, yet the enterprise and energy that have built on the frontier Council Bluffs and Omaha, under so many disadvantages, will in

a few years build up other points equally important at the terminus of the road.

   On the 12th of December, 1864, Mr. Dey had written to Durant in this pointed fashion:

    I have a letter from Mr. Seymour criticising our location from Omaha to the Elkhorn river, and making suggestions at great length. His earnestness is further evinced by a telegram sent a few days after his letter was mailed, urging an immediate and full answer from me. This part of the road was located with great care by me. You even animadverted on my going into the field personally to examine the proposed lines; you also promised to have the lines scrutinized by a committee of engineers nearly a year ago.
   The line as located by me has been approved, and the location has been acted upon for a year. It is too late, after spending so much time and money on the construction, to go back and consider relative merits of this and other lines. The present location is right, unless it is desirable for the company and government to make a longer road, more bridges, heavier excavations, and spend on twenty miles the money which should be expended on one hundred miles of road. Your views favored the economical policy, which was certainly the true policy of the company. I acted upon it deliberately and, as I still think, wisely.
   In view of the decided advantages of this route and the expenditures already made, it is in my opinion altogether out of the question to modify the location to meet the undigested views of Mr. Seymour, who can not know the relative advantages of one route over another, because he has not been over the country, and, from the tenor of his letter, not even examined the profiles in the New York office.

   Accordingly Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson, of the corps of United States engineers, was promptly detailed to make an examination of the routes in question. Simpson's thorough and evidently honest report exposes a palpable trick of Seymour's:

    The ruling grade on the new or amended portion, ascending westward between the Points A and B, is 40 feet to the mile, and call easily be reduced to 30 feet; ascending eastward 40 feet to the mile, and can easily be reduced to 30; leaving on the portion common to the two lines an ascending westward grade between Omaha and the point A of 66 feet to the mile, and between the points B and C at, ascending eastward grade of 79.2 feet to the mile.
   Now as Colonel Seymour, in his argument accompanying this report, marked appendix A 10, assumes a ruling grade of 40 feet on the whole extent of the new or amended line, extending from Omaha to the Elkhorn, and as at the time of my examining this line he had practically obtained this 40 feet grade only on the portion of the line between the points of divergence and convergence, A and B, and not on the portions common to both the old and the new line of location, I directed an instrumental survey to be made under Mr. D. H. Ainsworth, civil engineer, to ascertain the practicability of obviating the objectional (sic) grades in the manner suggested by Colonel Seymour; that is, by a line from Omaha down the Missouri valley for a distance of 2.75 miles, and thence ascending the bluff by a ravine, and connecting with the Mud creek route at or near station No. 421 . . .
   The map and profiles of this route, which have been submitted to me, show that, without any unreasonable expense, a grade of 30 feet ascending westward and the same grade ascending eastward can be obtained, with a shortening of the distance between Omaha and the point of intersection with the Mud creek route 66/100 of a mile.
   On the 23d of September, 1865, Secretary Harlan made the following report to the President:

    I have the honor to submit, herewith, the report, map, and profiles of Lieut.-Colonel J. H. Simpson, corps engineers, appointed to examine and report in relation to the application of the Union Pacific railroad company for an amended location of a portion of the route of their road between Omaha City, Nebraska, and the valley of the Elkhorn river.
   Colonel Simpson has given this matter a thorough investigation both on the ground and in the office, and has arrived at the conclusion that the line which the company have proposed and pledged themselves to build, extending from Omaha down the Missouri valley, and across the river bluff to Mud creek and Papillion valley (route No. 3) at or near station 421, and thence on said route to the valley of the Elkhorn, as shown on the accompanying map, with ruling grades of 30 feet, ascending westward and eastward, is 15 per cent better than any other route that call be obtained westwardly from Omaha, and therefore the best for the country which the company could build.

   The President approved the report by the following endorsement:

   The abandonment asked for by the Union

Pacific Railroad Company of the original location of their road between Omaha and the vallay (sic) of the Elkhorn, called No. 1 in Colonel Simpson's report, with the adoption of No. 3, or Mud creek route, is approved on the express condition that the company amend said No. 3 line to make it conform to the Missouri valley or No. 4 route, with ruling grades ascending westward and eastward, of 30 feet to the mile, as they propose.
   Colonel Simpson's report declared that "route No. 3 [the. ox-bow route] is 19 per cent inferior to original route No. 1; route No. 4 is 15 per cent superior to original route No. 1; route No. 5 is 40 per cent superior to original route No. l." No. 4, it will be observed, followed down the Missouri river, so as to avoid the 66-foot grade out of Omaha, and passed through a gap in the bluffs about four miles below Omaha. Seymour, in his letter to Simpson, August 29, 1865, arguing for the change, said:

    On leaving Omaha for St. Joseph, by steamboat, I took occasion to examine from the pilot house the bluffs between Omaha and the mouth of the Papillion, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any depressions between those points, through which a line could pass, with low grades, between the Missouri and Mud creek valleys, and I became satisfied that it could be done. The opinion was then formed that a very palpable engineering mistake had been made, either in fixing the terminus of the road at Omaha, or in the location of the line between Omaha and the Platte valley.

   In the same letter Seymour anticipates Simpson's exposure of the evasion of the real question of the heavy grades common to both routes -- No. 1 and No. 3 -- in his own report:

    It should be borne in mind, however, that the change in location and grades between stations 150 and 900 was not all that was specified, either in my report or the letter of Mr. Williams, as being necessary for the company to do before realizing the advantages claimed for the new route by reason of the reduction of the maximum grades to 40 feet per mile in each direction.
   The grading, then nearly completed, between Omaha and station 150 was to be used only temporarily; and it was recommended "that for the present as little money as practicable be expended in grading in the valley of Mud creek, between station 150 and the point where a line with moderate grades in both directions would naturally leave this valley to enter the valley of the Missouri river." The line referred to, "with moderate grades in both directions," was the route heretofore alluded to, as passing through the depression in the bluffs between Omaha and the mouth of the Papillion, and which I assumed would, as a matter of course, be adopted hereafter by the company.
   It was also stated in the report that the grade of 80 feet per mile, near the Elkhorn, must hereafter be reduced to 40 feet per mile, either by a slight change in the location, or by deepening the excavation and raising the embankment upon the present location.
   Simpson's concise and conscientious summing up is an intensely interesting and suggestive contribution to the story of the Union Pacific road as it affected Nebraska.
   Government Director Jesse L. Williams made rather more of a mess of the case than Seymour had done. He sought to reduce the west end eighty feet grade by arguing that it was not as important as it seemed, because two-thirds of the tonnage would go west, for which the heavy grade in question would be down hill. The east end grade is left to the fortune of the future:

   The cost of construction is considered equal -- the expense of changing the first five or six miles from Omaha running down the river, to be done at a future day, to get a 40-foot grade throughout, off-setting the estimated saving west of the point of divergence.
   It must also be stated that the full advantage of the lower grade on the new route will not be realized until the change alluded to in the last paragraph shall have been made. Without this change there is still near three miles of high grade, ascending westward from 61 to 66 feet per mile, to be overcome, mitigated somewhat in its inconvenience by being at the beginning of the road where assistant engines can at all times be in readiness.

   Mr. Seymour, in his ardor to serve Durant. gratuitously undertakes to put his strenuous superior in an attitude toward the proposed change which he refuses to assume. his letter to Simpson Seymour says:

   It may also be proper to state in this connection that Mr. T. C. Durant, vice-president,

never to my knowledge, advocated the change in location, either in or out of the board of directors. On the contrary, he seemed to be reluctantly forced into a passive assent to the change by the weight of the argument in its favor, and the judgment of the government directors, together with the advice of Mr. Usher, then Secretary of the Interior, who happened to be in the office of the company when the matter was under discussion, and represented to the board that the President, Mr. Lincoln, would undoubtedly favor the change.
   The matter, however, was never submitted to Mr. Lincoln for his approval before his death, nor was it officially laid before the Interior Department until the day fixed for the retirement of Mr. Usher as secretary.

   In the early part of February, 1865, the people of Omaha and Council Bluffs became greatly alarmed over indications and rumors that the terminus of the road would be changed to Bellevue, and on the 3d of February Augustus Kountze of Omaha telegraphed Durant as follows: "Citizens here will fill all agreements in relation to right of way and donations except a very few, particularly if assured by you that change of location to Sarpy county will not prejudice the interests of Omaha in regard to eastern counties. Can you give such assurance?" To this Mr. Durant replied: "The line has been changed to avoid heavy grades, not with intention of interfering with terminus." But Enos Lowe and Dr. Gilbert C. Monell, as a committee representing the citizens of Omaha, in their statement to Colonel Simpson say:

    These high grades on which he proposes to build the line as first located are not the grades determined by Mr. Dey, and contracted for at $50,000 per mile but a maximum grade of 116 feet to the mile. The latter alternative was stated by Colonel Seymour, the consulting engineer, to a committee of inquiry in Council Bluffs, and also to this committee. In other words, unless Congress would compensate for the 9 miles of curvature he would comply with the charter and build the straight line from Omaha, but on such a grade as to render it useless. This end was to be attained, as we are also informed, by extending his 9-mile curvature to Bellevue. Buildings such as are usually erected at the terminus were to be erected twenty miles west of Omaha, near the Elkhorn river, at which place he proposed to divert the great national highway of the nation from its central connections to be a side feeder to his own schemes. Even yet wishing to reconcile this matter if possible Mr. Durant was again addressed as follows: "If the new route is made, will you go on with building at Omaha, and make this the only point of crossing the river? If so citizens of Omaha will aid you on the new line." He replied: "We will consult the interests of the road whether citizens of Omaha aid us or not. We have had enough interference. You will destroy your last chance for a connection. The line west will do you no good. I can connect the Mississippi and Missouri with the Cedar Rapids road and run to De Soto for a million dollars less than go to Omaha."
   Owing to some mismanagement, the freight agent of the Pacific road at Omaha had been informed that the boats loaded with iron had left St. Louis for Omaha, and to receive the freight. Having no notice of any change of intention, he could not receive at Bellevue or pay freight there. It was consequently landed at Omaha, and the construction of the road is now apparently commenced here. In view of this whole procedure we can see nothing but a covert design to change the terminus for speculative purposes.

   Then the committee's statement proceeds:

    Shortly after this, however, works contracted for here were suspended, the preliminary steps taken to remove the same to Bellevue. Boats loaded with iron, on their departure from St. Louis, were ordered to land at Bellevue. Mr. Durant was again addressed and informed of our increased alarm, and assured that we would not oppose the new route if work was resumed at once here, and we could have his promise of its performance.

   On the 6th of September, in a letter to Simpson and Harbaugh, Durant replied to this aggressive attack with a bold, defensive broadside. At the dictate of necessity, which knows no law, he undertook to wholly discredit Dey, his former engineer, and his work: "Let me ask you, who have examined the ground and have all the facts, how can a man with ordinary sense expect a corporation to place any reliance upon his statements, or the least confidence in his ability, who deliberately makes a report to his employers so utterly at variance with the facts as they actually exist, or look upon any of his opinions except with distrust?" He charges that Dey "was in the

employ of interested parties in Omaha, laboring to thwart the honest endeavors of the company to do their duty"; and then he proceeds to tangle himself up in statements quite inconsistent with the facts and concessions of Simpson's and Seymour's reports:

    The object as really entertained, and publicly avowed by the company, was, by lengthening the line about 9 miles, to change the ruling grades from 80 to 40 feet per mile between Omaha and the Platte valley. The subject of a change of terminus has never been discussed or even suggested in the board of directors in connection with this subject; neither has it been alluded to in the report and recommendations made by the company's engineers. The surveys that have been made since the change was decided upon by the company have demonstrated that the new route is susceptible, at a very slight comparative expense, of being still further improved. Whereas it is deemed entirely impracticable, except at an expense which even the promotion of the private purposes and interests of the property-holders and citizens of Omaha that are represented by this committee would scarcely justify, to reduce the maximum grade upon the old location very much, if any below 80 feet per mile.
   In this lengthy statement Durant includes copies of telegrams which he had sent from time to time during the controversy. On the 1st of June, 1865, he telegraphs the following order to Jacob E. House, who was in charge of construction at Omaha: "Make arrangements for temporary track from Bellevue to junction without regard to grade, which can be changed when permanent location is made, secure place for saw-mill and Burnetizing machine at Bellevue. Do no work north of junction. We have no time to lose, and must commence at Bellevue as our only alternative to save enterprise."
   On the same day he telegraphed to Edward Creighton of Omaha: "Omaha is all right. Mr. House has my reason for making the change, which I regret as much as you do. If Secretary Harlan insists upon old location we submit, but shall build from Bellevue first and finish line on old location thereafter, if Congress does not release us from it. we shall lose business on high grades, and must cross river elsewhere; consequently need no buildings at Omaha." On the 9th of June he sent to Mr. Creighton a message still more threatening: "Shall make no promises as to crossing the river. We had made our arrangements to build at Omaha. We have had enough interference. We shall consult the interests of the road whether the citizens aid us or not. I should recommend, however, that you do not oppose new location; for if old line is adopted, Cedar Rapids road will cross at De Soto and Missouri & Mississippi road will connect (with) that. The only chance to prevent this is a reduction of grades. It will cost one million dollars more to complete the road through Iowa, via Des Moines to Council Bluffs, than to build to Cedar Rapids. Your people and papers will destroy the last chance you have, for the terminus of our road at your place will not help you if there is no road to connect east. If any more obstacles are thrown in the way, we shall make application to the President to change the terminus."
   In reply (June 10th) Creighton stated the Omaha ultimatum: "The people here will be satisfied with Mud creek route, if Bellevue movement is abandoned and permanent buildings be erected here at once. Omaha must be the only point of connection with the Missouri river; without this there will be trouble."
   Durant then proceeded, in a fairly propitiatory tone, to furnish from his point of view some very interesting history of the transaction.
   Mr. Durant also offered as a palliative a sort of non-committal approval of Colonel Simpson's recommendation, and which was adopted as an alternative in the President's consent to the change to the Mud creek route:

   This company has never claimed nor represented that the amended location asked for embodies at the present time all the advantages that may be attained over the original location, as about three miles of the old line west of Omaha was embraced in the amended location on account of the work on the same having been nearly completed when the change was made, on which there is a maximum grade greater than 40 feet, They do represent, however, and claim that the amended route, which is far superior with its present grade, is easily and at a very slight compara-

tive expense susceptible of being still further improved so as to embody all the advantages claimed for it, while the original can never, within any reasonable limit of expenditure, be so far reduced in grade as to make it a desirable connection for the railroad east of the Missouri river.
   By adopting the line recently surveyed by Mr. Ainsworth down the Missouri bottom a short distance and across to the Mud creek route, which can be done at a reasonable cost, trains going west will have only a maximum grade of 30 feet to overcome, while coming east can use the present descending grade on the first three miles west of Omaha, thus giving all the advantages of a double track.
   The Omaha Republican, in the course of a column of excited comment on the report that the company had issued orders to remove all workmen and depot buildings from Omaha to Bellevue, said:

    The charter of the company provides that the initial point of the road shall be fixed by the president of the United States "from some point on the western boundary of the state of Iowa," and that the line of road "shall run thence west on the most direct and practicable route to be approved by the President of the United States to the 100th meridian of west longitude." The President fixed the initial point in Iowa "opposite section 10, township 15 north of range 13, east of the 6th principal meridian, in the territory of Nebraska." This point is about one mile north of the foot of Farnham street.
   The Republican then relates that the company proceeded to locate its line from this initial point west to the 100th meridian, and then, in accordance with the law, the secretary of the interior immediately withdrew the public lands fifteen miles on either side of this line from sale or preëmption. Then the company undertook to deflect the line so as to lengthen the distance ten miles to the Elkhorn river, but the President and secretary refused to allow this change. On the 16th of June, 1865, the Republican reports thus: "Orders were received this morning from New York to resume work in every department of the Union Pacific at Omaha. We trust we have seen an end of the game of 'fast and loose.'" In its issue of August 4, 1865, the Republican avers that the ox-bow deflection, increasing the distance nine miles in fourteen. would put $300,000 into the coffers of the company. On the 6th of September the same journal relates that P. W. Hitchcock and Joel T. Griffen, through J. M. Woolworth, their attorney, had applied to Chief Justice Kellogg, of the territorial supreme court, for an injunction restraining the Union Pacific company from entering on land owned by them for the proposed construction of the ox-bow line, on the ground that it had already exhausted its rights by the first location. The court denied the writ, giving several evasive reasons, one of them that the company had good reason to believe that the new route had been approved by the President. It was in fact approved, conditionally, about two months later.
   The continuing misapprehension, misunderstanding, and misconception of the newer West by the older East is illustrated by a statement of the New York Evening Post that the change to the ox-bow route was recommended by the engineeer (sic) of the company, "who, after exploration of the surrounding country, discovered a mountain pass a few miles to the southward of the first route surveyed, through which the road can be run," meaning the road over the upland prairie to the historic Mud creek, pointed out in Colonel Simpson's recommendation of route No. 4.
   In addition to the domestic embroilment about the starting point and the route of the road immediately from the river, in the latter part of 1865, the press of the territory, without regard to party, expressed great alarm lest the road should be entirely diverted to the Smoky Hill route, and statehood was urged for the sake of commanding, political influence in Congress to further aid in averting such a calamity.
   In the fall of 1865 the great project was again revivified by the intervention of the Ames brothers and the invention of the Credit Mobilier scheme; and while the new men and the new expedient must be credited with successfully performing the great task, they also must be held responsible for making the work known chiefly as a grievous public scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a construction company organized by and of the stockholders of the railroad company. It met two indis-

pensable conditions, namely, being a corporation its members were liable only to the amount of their subscription, while before it was resorted to, the gigantic work had been undertaken by the dangerous partnerships then in vogue; and its stockholders had the double chance of profiting by the construction of the road as well as by the value of the road itself.
   The detailed story of the participation of a large number of eminent members of Congress in this Credit Mobilier speculation, and of their inability to wash their hands of the stains of the illicit manipulation of its shares distributed by Ames, may not be repeated appropriately on these pages, though our commonwealth was the main theater of the Union Pacific drama of which this Credit Mobilier incident was the most dramatic episode.
   On the highest ground traversed by the Union Pacific road commercial sentiment has reared a gigantic shaft in recognition of Oakes Ames's lofty achievement. He is thus judged by the business standard. In the report of the Poland committee of investigation, Ames is adjudged guilty of bribery of his fellow members of the House of Representatives, and his expulsion is recommended; on the records of the House his censure still stands, and it is tolerably certain that the grave opened prematurely to cover his own sense of disgrace. He is thus judged by the standard of public ethical sentiment. Much has been said in complete exculpation of Ames, and much also in palliation of his offense, but, from a proper ethical point of view, without avail. The admitted circumstances of Ames's parcelling of blocks of Credit Mobilier stock among members of Congress absolutely precludes apology, and cannot be explained away. But the splendid defense of Ames, forensically speaking, by an eminent citizen of Nebraska, Andrew J. Poppleton -- lends peculiar interest for Nebraskans to this tragical episode of the building of the great highway. The scholars and orators of those early days, who were chiefly confined to the members of the legal profession, thought, studied, and spoke upon erudite themes, and their style was patterned after the classic masters of legal and general oratory. Since that time the universal currency or flood of literature and drama has necessarily accommodated itself to the universal taste or capacity, and so seems disproportionately light. Edmund Burke was the topic of one of Mr. Poppleton's public lectures, and this defense shows the influence of that master of eloquence upon his style. The defense is also pervaded with the most skilful insinuation of the martyrdom of the accused -- that the extraordinary end sought involved or justified extraordinary means for its accomplishment -- which is a reminder of the pleas in behalf of Warren Hastings and Lord Clive.
   George Francis Train, who had been everywhere, and with quick but erratic vision had seen everything, had learned of the prodigies in "promotion" performed by the Credit Mobilier of France, which was chartered in 1853. In 1864 Train acquired the charter of the Pennsylvania agency, and, building better than he knew along the line of consistency, had the name changed to "The Credit Mobilier of America." The subsequent career of the original was utterly ruinous, and its ways were as devious and scandalous as those of its namesake.
   Stockholders in Durant's construction company exchanged their shares for Credit Mobilier stock according to the amount they had paid in; and the holders of the $2,180,000 Union Pacific stock were allowed to take Credit Mobilier stock in exchange for it, according to the amounts paid in. The Hoxie contract, covering the 247 miles to the 100th meridian, was assigned to the Credit Mobilier, and Durant made a contract with one Boomer -- an irresponsible though remarkably appropriate name --for the construction of 153 miles west of the 100th meridian, at $19,500 a mile to the crossing of the Platte and $20,000 a mile beyond that point. When the Union Pacific directors undertook to pay the Credit Mobilier for fifty-eight completed miles of this road, at the rate of $50,000 a mile, Durant protested against the swindle, and an injunction from a New York court finally prevented it. Then the directors made a contract with John S. M. Williams for the construction of 268 miles

westward from the 100th meridian, at the rate of $50,000 a mile, and again Durant enjoined its performance. The Hoxie contract was completed to the 100th meridian by October 5, 1866, and by August 16th of the next year 188 miles more were completed, thus carrying the work within thirty-seven miles of the west boundary of Nebraska.
   About this time the New England faction, led by the Ames brothers, forced Durant out of the Credit Mobilier directory, and Sidney Dillon was elected its president in place of Durant. In August, 1867, the differences between the factions were compromised, and the famous contract with Oakes Ames was made for the construction of 667 miles west of the 100th meridian, and which gave Ames the option of extending it to Salt Lake. Under this contract and a subcontract with James W. Davis for the remainder beyond the limit of 667 miles, the great work was completed to the meeting at Promontory, May 10, 1869.
   It is impracticable to ascertain accurately the

Engraving furnished by E. L. Lomax, general passenger agent Union Pacific railroad.

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE AT PROMONTORY, MAY 10, 1869

profits which the Credit Mobilier, the real builder of the Union Pacific road, realized on its work, but they were probably not less than $16,000,000 -- more than twenty-five per cent; nor, considering all the circumstances, should it be said that this profit was too large. It can only be said that if the federal government and the company had been capable, economically and morally, of properly performing their duties, there would have been a great saving of cost in money and in the good name of all concerned.
   To him who studies the construction of the first Pacific railway in the light of present methods of railway building, the men who put through this great enterprise seem immeasurably extravagant if not corrupt. Those who suffered from their manipulations of the leading railway properties of the West are pretty sure to call them corrupt. But to him who looks at the railway history of the country as a whole, the building of the first railway to the Pacific appears as a mere episode, to be measured by quite different standards. Such an one will, of course, regret that extravagant