0,000, and then drew $848,000 Government
subsidy, or more than enough to build the second section and draw
another installment of the subsidy; and that they repeated the operation
until the whole line was completed. These men were in such haste to
realize the profits which their undertaking promised them that they did
not even take sufficient time to make a proper survey of their line. Had
they done so, a great saving, both in the construction and in the
subsequent operation of the road, might have been effected. It is now
well known that a route could have been found through the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, not far distant from the route chosen, which would have saved
800 feet in elevation and at least 25 per cent. in the expense of
grading.

It is certainly safe to say that if less than forty thousand dollars a
mile was sufficient to construct the road through the Sierra Nevadas the
Federal contribution of $50,000,000 for the entire line, from Omaha to
San Francisco, left, after the completion, a respectable surplus, either
to the companies or those of their members who had the construction
contract, and that the $75,000,000 of capital stock and the $55,000,000
of first mortgage bonds which the two companies issued were a gigantic
dividend to the stockholders, for which, practically, no consideration
was given.

The companies might well have been satisfied with the Government's
generosity, but their success in imposing upon Congress stimulated their
greed. The act of 1864 provided that the charge for Government
transportation over these roads should be applied to the liquidation of
its bonds, and that after the completion of the lines five per cent. of
their net earnings should likewise be so applied. When the Secretary of
the Treasury, under the law, refused to pay them the amount earned by
Government transportation, and in addition to this demanded the five per
cent. of their net earnings in liquidation of their debt, the companies
applied to Congress to again amend their charters so as to relieve them
for the time being from any direct payment of either principal or
interest of the Government bonds, and to make it the duty of the
Secretary of the Treasury to pay to the companies in money one-half of
the compensation allowed to them by law for services performed for the
Government. And again Congress responded to their demands, granting
them, by a rider to the army appropriation bill, passed March 3, 1871,
all the rel