Some of the facts concerning the planning, building and attendant celebration of this now famous tunnel should be peculiarly interesting to the Angeleño of to-day, as also to his descendants, for not only do they possess intrinsic historical importance, but they exemplify as well both the comparative insignificance of Los Angeles at the time when this great engineering feat was so successfully undertaken and the occasional futility of human prophecies, even when such prophecies are voiced by those most fitted at the time to deliver them.
I have already mentioned the interview which Governor Downey and I had with Collis P. Huntington, in San Francisco, when we presented the arguments of Los Angeles for the extension of the Southern Pacific Railroad to this point. The greatest difficulty, from an engineering standpoint, was the boring and finishing of the San Fernando tunnel, and the then small town of Los Angeles was compelled to pass through much discouragement before she became the Southern terminus of the road, a selection of the most vital importance to her future prosperity and growth. In the first place, a Mr. Rice, whose office was in Temple Block, represented the Railroad Company in telling the citizens of Los Angeles that if they did not appropriate toward the undertaking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—then an enormous sum of money—Los Angeles would be left out of the line of travel and the railroad would be built so as to pass several miles inland, compelling our city to make a choice between putting in a branch to connect with the main line or resigning any claim she might have to become a railroad center. In fact, this is precisely what occurred in the case of Visalia and a number of other towns; that is to say: they are to-day the termini of railroad feeders, instead of a part of the main line as they perhaps might have been.
When this threat or warning was delivered, an agitation immediately set in, both to collect the money that the Company demanded and to influence its management to include Los Angeles on the main line. Judge R. M. Widney was one of the prominent figures in the local campaign. The Chamber of Commerce, through its President, Solomon Lazard, also buckled on its armor in behalf of Los Angeles and entered the lists. Notably it sent a telegram to the United States Senate—the railroad, as is well known, having received land-grants of inestimable value from Congress and being considered, therefore, susceptible to influence; and this telegram was penned with such classical eloquence that it poured seventy-five dollars into the coffers of the telegraph company. The net result of the campaign was the decision of the Railroad Company to include Los Angeles among the favored stations.
The politics of the situation having thus been satisfactorily settled, the engineering problems began to cast their shadows. General Stoneman stated that the tunnel bore could not be effected, an opinion which was by no means uncommon at that time. Others again said that people would never be induced to travel through so long a tunnel; still another set of pessimists stated that the winter rains would cause it to cave in, to which Senator Stanford laconically replied that it was "too damned dry in Southern California for any such catastrophe." This railroad and the tunnel, however, were fortunately to become one of those happy instances in which the proposals of man and the disposals of the Lord are identical, for in course of time both found their completion under the able direction of railroad genius, assisted in no small way by the gangs of thousands of Orientals who did the hard road-work.
As in the case with practically every Southern Californian enterprise, the finishing of this great undertaking was accompanied by a rather elaborate celebration. A delegation of San Francisco citizens, one of whom was my brother, met at Newhall a delegation from Los Angeles including S. Lazard[34] and myself, and I thus have the pleasant recollection of having been among the very first who went through the tunnel on that initial trip. Having arrived at Newhall, the citizens of the Northern and Southern cities symbolized, by fraternal handshaking, the completion of this new and strongest bond between them. Amidst general rejoicing, and with thousands of Chinamen lined up on either side of the track, each at full attention and all presenting their—shovels!—General D. D. Colton drove the golden spike which bound the rails from the North with the rails from the South. After considerable speech-making and celebrating, most of the company boarded the train for Los Angeles, where the jollification was concluded with a banquet, a ball, illuminations and other festivities. Possibly due to the great increase in Chinese brought to Southern California through railroad work, repeated demonstrations against the Mongolians were made here at meetings during the summer.
Shortly after the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad the people of Los Angeles became very much dissatisfied with the Company's method of handling their business, and especially with the arbitrary rulings of J. C. Stubbs in making freight rates. On one occasion, for example, a shipper approached Stubbs and asked for a rate on a carload of potatoes from San Francisco to Tucson. Stubbs asked him how much he expected to pay for the potatoes and what he would get for them; and having obtained this information, he allowed the shipper a small profit and took the balance for freight. This dissatisfaction on the part of an enterprising community accustomed to some liberality found in time such an open expression that Charles F. Crocker, one of the original promoters of the Central, and one of the owners of the Southern Pacific, who had occasionally visited Los Angeles, came down to confer with the City Council at a public meeting.
Crocker, as President of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, was a very important man, and I felt at the time that he was most discourteously received by those with whom he had come to discuss the situation. The meeting, which I attended, was held in the small Council Room, and I well remember the oppressive closeness. The place was, indeed, packed; people were smoking and chewing tobacco; and the reader may perhaps imagine the extreme condition of both the atmosphere and the floor. This, however, was not all: when one of the Councilmen—out of regard, I suppose, for the railroad President's other engagements—asked that Mr. Crocker be permitted to address the City Fathers, J. S. Thompson, a revolutionary Councilman, stood up and declared that the San Francisco magnate would be heard when his time came and—not before! How this lack of consideration impressed the visitor may be seen from the conclusion of my story.
After a while, Crocker was allowed to speak; and in the course of his remarks he stated that the Southern Pacific Railroad Company had invested a great amount of money, and that it was necessary to realize proper interest on their expenditure. Thereupon, Isaac W. Lord, one of the spectators, after whom Lordsburg was named, arose and begged to tell a little story. An ambitious individual, he said, who had once built a hotel on the desert at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was without a guest until, one day, a lone traveler rode across the burning sands and put up for the night at the hostelry. Next morning, the stranger was handed a bill for seventy-five dollars; and upon inquiring why so much had been charged, the proprietor explained that he had spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in building the hotel; that the stranger was, thus far, the first and only guest; and that, therefore, he must pay his part of the interest on the investment.
The story, to Mr. Crocker's discomfiture, brought a loud laugh; and it was then, before the laughter had died out, that the famous railroad man, resuming the debate, made his memorable threat:
"If this be the spirit in which Los Angeles proposes to deal with the railroad upon which the town's very vitality must depend, I will make grass to grow in the streets of your city!"