The charter as originally granted, July 1, 1862, was treasonably generous; but these far-from-the-firing-line patriots were insatiably gluttonous, and they teased and bribed till exactly two years later (July 2, 1864, precisely at a time when the war was terribly intense and especially critical), the liberality of the terms of the charter was almost doubled.
Study the terms—the chief features—of the charter as granted and amended.
Remember the date, June 24 to July 1, 1862,—the week of the Seven Days’ Battle. Also look sharply for the patriotism—in the charter.
The terms, in outline, of the Union Pacific charter:
First: At a time when the nation was straining every nerve to carry on the war, at a time when the soldiers in the trenches were paid only 43 cents a day, and even that in depreciated paper money, and were given salt pork and mouldy crackers for rations—at such a time, business men (cunningly assisted by patriotic Congressmen and noble Senators) dipped their greedy hands into the National Treasury and took out a government “loan” to the railway company of $60,000,000 in interest-bearing government bonds worth more than sufficient to build the road. Professor W. Z. Ripley (Harvard University) says:[[146]]
“From the books of the Union Pacific and the Credit Mobilier it appears that the expenditures by the Union Pacific directly amounted to $9,746,683.33; and that the actual expenditures under the Hoxie, Ames and Davis contracts were $50,720,957.94, making the total cost of the road $60,467,641.27.”
This good-as-cash loan from the government was “assistance” and “incentive” given to the genteel promoters of the Union Pacific Railway: $16,000 per mile from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains; $48,000 per mile through the Rocky Mountains; and $32,000 per mile beyond the Rockies. This was a liberal allowance, surely. Collis P. Huntington, long time president of the Southern Pacific, claimed afterward that the road could be built at an average cost of less than $10,000 per mile. More recently the Union Pacific Railway Company (contending with the State of Utah over tax burdens) proved before the Board of Equalization at Salt Lake City, by the sworn testimony of engineers, that the average cost of the Utah Central line, in a rough country, was only $7,298.20 per mile.
The dear capitalist government was rich enough to stuff the pockets of the glistening, flag-waving traitors with $60,000,000 in bonds like gold as “assistance” and “incentive” for self-preservation patriotism. But at the same time this dear government could give the “boys in blue” only 43 cents a day in cheap rag money as “incentive.” These “enterprising business men” drank champagne and slept in soft beds; but the “boys in blue” drank water from muddy horse-tracks and slept on the ground.
Second: The Union Pacific Company, it was cunningly arranged, might make elsewhere a private, cash, mortgage-bonded loan equal to the government loan, $60,000,000.
Third: The noble Christian statesmen in Congress and the noble Christian business men (patriots all) cunningly agreed that a first mortgage should be given for the private loan of $60,000,000.