do all the harm they
can do this kind of property, and I think my views are
shared by all people who have money to invest. No one is
disposed to create property which, after being created, is
not to be controlled by its ownership. Of course, we all
expect to be subject to the police regulations and to pay
the taxes of any State even as other property, but whenever
anything is done beyond that it checks this kind of
improvement, and where it approaches so near confiscation as
the sentiment of Texas tends it entirely prevents capital
from being invested.

"I think there is no road in Texas that is to-day earning
its operating and fixed charges. Every road, I think, has
been or is in the hands of a receiver, excepting our great
east and west line, which is supported by business going
entirely through the State, which business could also be
sent another way, and would be so sent, excepting that we
believe the people of Texas will some time take a sober
second thought and treat the railroads as they do other
kinds of property. When that time comes I shall be ready to
talk to you about your franchises, if it comes in my day,
and I believe it will, as I think no other people are
suffering from an unwise policy persistently pursued as are
the people of your State.

"Yours truly,
C. P. HUNTINGTON."

"Now, in the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he hath grown so great?"

It was but a few years ago when this Mr. Huntington was keeping a small
retail store in the city of Sacramento, and he exhibited then no greater
ability, except perhaps that he was a little more venturesome, than
thousands of others engaged in the same occupation; subsequently he
engaged, with several others, in the Central Pacific Railroad scheme,
and received from the bounties of our generous Government as his share
of the profits in that enterprise several million dollars, which sum has
ever since been continually swelled by the exercise of a power scarcely
inferior to the power of taxing the property of the Pacific Coast. He
has been so successful for years in manipulating Congressmen and State
legislatures and shaping the policies of States that he now considers it
impertinent and short-sighted for a people to take