How many historical errors can you identify?
How many historical errors can you identify in the following newspaper article written by a "Museum Docent"?
"History Talk: The Pacific Railroad Act" by KEN MANIES, © Oroville Mercury-Register, 4/24/2012. (Newspaper Article)
"... The "Big Four" started the Central Pacific Railroad, and Thomas Durant was the head of the Union Pacific. All became "robber barons," or just "robbers," and that was the best thing they were called.
The Civil War was taking all the money, so payments were made in land. The rate for track on level ground was $16,000 per mile, rolling hill lands $32,000, and mountains $48,000 per mile.
The first thing the Big Four did was to get state geologist J.D. Whitney to file a report that the ground from Sacramento across the valley was all mountains, so they collected the higher fees for some 20 miles.
What they paid Whitney is unknown, but they did name a mountain after him.
The Big four then formed companies to sell themselves the supplies to build, jacking the costs up, way up! They underpaid the Chinese workers, and used whips to keep them in line. Before they were finished they got the number of sections of land doubled, to 10 square miles of land per mile of track.
... No Chinese appear in the photos of the crowds at the driving that last spike ... " [More]
[Courtesy Google Alerts.]
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 6:51 AM
13 Comments:
"The 'Big Four' ... All became 'robber barons,' or just 'robbers,' and that was the best thing they were called."
First, they did not actually become "robber barons" (nor is it a bad thing to be so successful), not the least because that is a later pejorative, not the actual criticism leveled at the time. The contemporaneous complaint actually was that such men were so ruthless competitors that they drastically lowered the transportation cost to the public to the detriment of previously established monopolies.
Let's take Leland Stanford, for example, who was a Sacramento shopkeeper who put his entire net worth at risk and got rich by successfully completing the transcontinental railroad seven years ahead of schedule and used his fortune to create Stanford University which led to Silicon Valley which is responsible for the electronics revolution and much of the vastly improved standard of living today. If "robber" was "the best thing they were called?" how is it that Leland Stanford was elected governor of California and later became U.S. senator? Reminiscing years later, CPRR telegraph operator T. R. Jones wrote of Governor Stanford that "we employees all loved him."
If Ken Manies wants to appoint himself special prosecutor to make a charge of "robbery" he needs to state with great specificity what crime occurred, on what date, and what property was alleged to have been unlawfully taken and by whom. Then he needs to convincingly present the evidence to a jury. But Ken Manies has not met his burden, and in fact there was no such prosecution, and the American idea of fairness dictates "innocent until proven guilty," so Stanford is innocent of the crime of "robbery." He was never even charged with such a crime.
The Big Four were libeled in the San Francisco newspapers and a pamphlet which false accused them of the "Dutch Flat Swindle", i.e., that they never actually intended to build a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains. But the completion of the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869 fully disposed of those false accusations.
"The Civil War was taking all the money, so payments were made in land. The rate for track on level ground was $16,000 per mile, rolling hill lands $32,000, and mountains $48,000 per mile." ... "Before they were finished they got the number of sections of land doubled, to 10 square miles of land per mile of track."
But the government did not pay money for building the transcontinental railroad, instead issuing bonds as portions of the railroad were built that had to be sold to investors, and the almost worthless and unsaleable mountain and arid land granted to the Central Pacific Railroad could not be sold for farming, so could not provide any significant amount of cash to build a railroad. To assert that land could substitute for money, Ken Manies needs to document the dates and amounts supposedly realized from sale in the 1860's of CPRR lands. Most of the land remained unsold decades later. Saying "they got the number of sections of land doubled" makes it sound nefarious, but it was actually a revised act passed by Congress which had to increase incentives because the initial version of the Pacific Railroad Act did not provide sufficient funding (in the form of land grants and loans that had to be and were repaid in full with interest) to get the transcontinental railroad built.
"The first thing the Big Four did was to get state geologist J.D. Whitney to file a report that the ground from Sacramento across the valley was all mountains, so they collected the higher fees for some 20 miles. What they paid Whitney is unknown, but they did name a mountain after him."
Again an unfair and completely undocumented charge of bribery with no evidence against a person who was never charged with such a crime.
Reclassifying the foothills as mountains was clearly a maneuver to get the railroad financed and built as Congress intended.
Does Ken Manies have any evidence that the government was deceived by this maneuver? President Abraham Lincoln, who approved the maneuver, was hardly an incompetent on railroad matters. He was a distinguished attorney who had litigated one of the most important cases relating to railroads.
"The Big four then formed companies to sell themselves the supplies to build, jacking the costs up, way up!"
It makes little sense to borrow money that you will have to repay with interest, as you are worse off financially in the long run unless you are using the money to build something valuable.
Congress investigated and apparently was unable to document this. No criminal charges were filed against the Big Four. What is Ken Manies' evidence?
The costs were jacked up because supplies during the Civil War were difficult to obtain and expensive.
"They underpaid the Chinese workers, and used whips to keep them in line."
Can Ken Manies provide any primary source evidence that the Chinese workers were underpaid or mistreated?
The evidence is that Chinese and Caucasian laborers were paid about the same amount, 30-35 dollars per month in gold coin which was a small fortune for 19th century peasants from Canton.
If the Chinese workers were underpaid or mistreated, why were they eager to come to California to take the Central Pacific Railroad jobs in large numbers?
If they were underpaid, how is it that the Chinese were able to save two thirds of their pay to become very wealthy by their standards?
Claiming "used whips to keep them in line" sounds like a confusion about whether the railroad workers were slaves or free in combination with the false charges of racism that are so often used today as a political weapon.
Congress investigated and found that the Chinese workers on the Central Pacific Railroad were well treated free men. They were likely better treated than the Irish workers on the Union Pacific Railroad.
Does it make sense that the railroad "used whips to keep them in line" and then invited them to lunch to celebrate the Chinese contribution to building the railroad?
"No Chinese appear in the photos of the crowds at the driving that last spike ... "
The famous photo's of the completion of the transcontinental railroad don't include the Chinese workers because the pictures were taken just after the completion of the ceremony while the Chinese participants were dining with Central Pacific Railroad mangement in Superintendent Strobridge's rail car.
Please honor the memory of the heroic Chinese transcontinental railroad workers by telling their story with historical accuracy.
Part 2.
Thanks for all your interest in my story, and I hope you will read the others parts as they come out.
I only get from 500-600 words per story, so to ref. to all the books for my proof is not going to happen. I'll give you one that is my book, "MAKING'TRACKS", by Mayer & Voce.
Not being charged with a crime is not proof on being innocent. It only means he was not charged. I did not come up with any of the history on my own, some came from the Sac.RR museum, some from on-line.
History is what it is, and I did not set out to damage your demi-gods, nor re-write history. I know Stanford founded a University, it was in memory of his son who died.
Also the fact that Jones liked his boss, doesn't mean anything. I also made no ref. to Dutch Flat.
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.
To write "Not being charged with a crime is not proof on being innocent. It only means he was not charged." only repeats the fundamental error. The American idea of fairness and our legal system is "Innocent until proven guilty." So your continuing to ask for proof of being innocent reflects an important misunderstanding. It is only the prosecution (the role you have assigned yourself) that has anything to prove. The defense is not asked to prove innocence, nor is there any mechanism provided for the defense to ever prove innocence. Specifically, being acquitted is not even proof of innocence. So the only requirement is that if you want to claim guilt, it is entirely your burden to prove guilt. With your misunderstanding of the legal process, you have not even attempted to meet your burden, have offered up no proof of guilt, so have failed. Your expectation that anyone has to prove innocence remains fundamentally unfair and contrary to American values and concepts of justice.
You cite one book without specifying the passage (page number, etc.), the Sac.RR museum, and from information on-line. That is inadequate both because you have not pointed to any specific text that anyone could find or read due to lack of sufficient precision in the citation, and because none of what you cite is primary source material. How do you know that the sources that you don't quite exactly cite wrote the history correctly? – they were not even there to observe what actually happened. History is not "what it is" – it is not even the sum of all the information, misinformation, and speculation that you can find – you have to tease it out using writings by people who might have actually known what really happened, trying to figure out who to believe. The fact that Jones liked his boss means everything, since he actually knew and worked for Stanford for years – that put him in an exellect position to know the man. If you want to disagree, it is your burden, for example, to find and quote other people who knew Stanford and who contradict Jones' personal observations.
When you make a disparaging reference to "your demi-gods" you seem to miss the historical significance. Here is a man who was a frontier shopkeeper who decided at the risk of his entire personal financial wealth to build a railroad across the wilderness using only manual labor who not only succeeded but then used his fortune to create a great University. If that is not an example of incredible accomplishment and greatness, we don't know what would be. We made no claim that Stanford had no flaws, instead intending to express our gratitude to someone who contributed to making our lives much richer and better.
You write that you made no reference to the "Dutch Flat scandal." So despite calling them "robbers" you apparently failed to appreciate what they were actually accused of at the time, or that the passage of time has conclusively proved that the charge actually made was entirely false. They were shown not to be con artists who did not intended to build a railroad – they actually completed a well built railroad seven years ahead of schedule thereby proving the charge as made to be utterly false.
Part 3.
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
—Mark Twain
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