k in a
private corporation.

A third proposition was fathered by John Plumbe of Dubuque, Iowa, who
suggested at a public meeting, held at his home town in March 1838,
that a railroad be built from the great lakes to the Columbia River.
His plan contemplated an appropriation from Congress of alternate
sections of the public lands on either side of the right of way. The
company to be capitalized at one hundred million dollars, twenty
million shares at five dollars each. Twenty-five cents per share to be
paid down to provide a fund to commence operations and subsequent
assessments of like amount to be paid as the money was needed until
the full amount had been paid in. One hundred miles to be constructed
each year and the whole line completed in twenty years.

All of these propositions were more or less visionary and advanced by
men of theory with little or no capital. They had the effect of
awakening public interest and paved the way for a more feasible plan.
The question of a Pacific railway, its practicability, earnings, and
effect, were constantly before the people. In 1844 the idea had become
firmly fixed, the leading advocate being a New York merchant named
Asa Whitney, who has been called the "Father of the Pacific Railway."
Mr. Whitney had spent some years in commercial life in China,
returning to the United States with a competency. Becoming enthused
with the idea, he put his all,--energy, time, and money into the
project of a trans-continental railroad, finding many supporters. At
first he advocated Carver's plan, but becoming convinced that it was
not feasible, he sprung a new one of his own. He proposed that
Congress should give to him, his heirs and assigns, a strip of land,
sixty miles wide, with the railroad in the center, this from a point
on Lake Michigan to the Pacific Coast. This land he proposed to
colonize and sell to emigrants from Europe, from the proceeds build
the line, retaining whatever surplus there might be after its
completion, as his own.

Whitney was an indefatigable worker, thoroughly in earnest, a fluent
speaker, both in public and private, well fortified with statistics
and arguments. He personally travelled the whole country from Maine to
fifteen miles up the Missouri River. The legislatures of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York,
Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, and
Georgia, all endorsed his plan by favorable