The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville,
FL)
Jules Wagman
Empire Express moves like a slow freight. But when it reaches the
top of the grade it begins to pick up speed and, as actually happened
so many times in the early days of railroading, it turns into a
runaway train, bowling over everything in its path while linking the
two coasts and then crashing in a heap.
David Haward Bain, a professor at Middlebury College in
Middlebury, Vt., and an author, critic and essayist, spent 14 years
on Empire Express, and it shows in the sometimes excruciating detail.
This is not a book for the casual reader, but is certainly one that
any student of 19th century America, the West or railroading must
read.
Building the transcontinental railroad took six years, ending on
May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah, where the golden spike united the
westbound Union Pacific and eastbound Central Pacific. The waste,
corruption, fraud, arson and miscellaneous crime that accompanied the
work is unequaled in our history.
Senators and representatives were bribed in Washington as were vice
presidents, a future president and numerous other federal officials.
Bain suggests the corruption may even have brushed President Lincoln.
Lincoln had to decide where on the west bank of the Missouri River
the Union Pacific would start building. In deciding, he said, 'I've
got a quarter-section (160 acres) of land right across there (in
Council Bluffs, Iowa) and if I fix it there they will say that I have
done it to benefit my land. But I will fix it there anyhow.'
Bain does not say if Lincoln profited from his decision. Government
subsidies were $ 24,000 a mile on the low prairies, $ 48,000 a mile
on the high prairies and $ 96,000 a mile in the mountains, plus land
along the right-of-way.
Directors set up their own construction companies to charge the
railroads a government subsidy and then some. The financing was so
complicated that, Bain writes, investigators could not absorb all the
facts and 'not even after 130 years is it possible to estimate what
treasures were conveyed by the Empire Express.'
Union Pacific began construction at Omaha, Neb., with open loops
instead of straight track, thus picking up more money for the
increased mileage. Directors of both companies also sold railroad
ties, timber and stone for trestles and bridges.
U.S. Rep. Oakes Ames, who also headed Union Pacific, was censured
by the House as a briber. Another congressman was censured for
accepting bribes. Others that Ames said he bribed but were cleared
include U.S. Rep. -- and later president -- James A. Garfield and
President U.S. Grant's vice presidents, Schuyler Colfax and Henry
Wilson.
Among those who enriched themselves and whom we remember today was
California Gov. and later U.S. Sen. Leland Stanford Sr., who put much
of his money into a Palo Alto, Calif., ranch which is now the campus
of Stanford University, named for his son, who died before entering
college. Both companies and the Army raised havoc with the Indian
tribes, driving them off their lands and killing many in the process.
The Central Pacific brought in Chinese for the road gangs; Union
Pacific used mostly Irish immigrants.
This is truly a monumental work, equal to the monumental era it portrays.