“Then to sum up, what we must understand is, that San Diego cannot hope to be a western terminus of a transcontinental railway; that all we may hope to get is a little branch road from some point convenient to the Southern Pacific Railroad.” Mr. Stanford bowed. “And yet,” Mr. Holman continued, “by right, San Diego is the terminal point of a transcontinental railway, and San Diego ought to be the shipping point for all that immense country comprising Arizona, Southern California and Northern Mexico. We are more than five hundred miles nearer to those countries than San Francisco, thus you will be making people travel six hundred miles more than is necessary to get to a shipping point on the Pacific.”
“So much more business for our road,” Mr. Stanford said, laughing, in a dignified way, and slightly elevating his eyebrows and shoulders, as if to indicate that really the matter hardly merited his consideration.
“But without asking or expecting you to take any sentimental or philosophic or moralizing view of our case as a benefactor, will you not take into consideration, as a business man, the immense benefit that there will be to yourselves to have control of the trade which will be the result of uniting Southern California with Arizona, with the Southern States and Northern Mexico, and developing those vast countries now lying useless, scarcely inhabited.”
“Oh, yes; we have thought of that, I suppose, but we are too busy up here. We have too much business on hand nearer us to think of attending to those wild countries.”
“Then, Governor, let some one else attend to them. We have only one life to live, and, really, much as we would like to await your pleasure, we cannot arrest the march of time. Time goes on, and as it slips by, ruin approaches us. We invested all our means in San Diego, hoping that Colonel Scott would build his railroad. Now we see plainly that unless you withdraw your opposition to Scott we are ruined men, and many more innocent people are in the same situation. So we come to you and say, if you will not let any one else build us a railroad, then do build it yourself. It will save us from ruin and give you untold wealth. We will be glad to see you make millions if we only secure for ourselves our bread and butter,” said Mr. Holman.
“Our bread; never mind the butter,” said Don Mariano, smiling.
“Why, you at least have plenty of cows to make butter,” said Mr. Stanford, addressing Señor Alamar, evidently wishing to avoid the subject, by turning it off.
“No, sir, I haven't. The squatters at my rancho shot and killed my cattle, so that I was obliged to send off those that I had left, and in doing this a snow-storm overtook us, and nearly all my animals perished then. The Indians will finish those which survived the snow.”
“Those Indians are great thieves, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir; but not so bad to me as the squatters. The Indians kill my cattle to eat them, whereas the squatters did so to ruin me. Thus, having now lost all my cattle, I have only my land to rely upon for a living—nothing else. Hence my great anxiety to have the Texas Pacific. My land will be very valuable if we have a railroad and our county becomes more settled; but if not, my land, like everybody else's land in our county, will be unsaleable, worthless. A railroad soon is our only salvation.”