Total amount of United States bonds asked of the Government by the Company, as a loan to secure the extension of its Road to Albuquerque....... .$14,800,000 00 The annual interest on which (payable in cur- Total yearly payment, interest and $888,000 00 187,204 33 $1,075,204 33 $1,083,872 00 But the annual saving to the Government in transportation, for Military Department, mails, and Indian supplies, as already shown, is...... Which exceeds the entire annual obligations (due to both interest and principal) incurred by the Government on account of the aid required by this Company for the extension of its Road to the Rio Grande. It will be observed that this makes no reference to the fact that one-half of the amount due to the Railroad for all transportation is, by the act, retained by the Government to reimburse its loan, but proceeds on the supposition that the whole is paid in cash to the company as earned. To ascertain the actual saving of cash expenditure to the Government it is therefore necessary to add 50 per cent. to the above saving, or $541,936, making total amount retrenchment $1,625,808, which would wipe out the entire Government aid in less than ten years. Or should the amount of transportation to New Mexico, estimated above at twenty millions pounds, fall off one-half, the saving would still pay off the United States bonds long before the Government has agreed to pay them, (thirty years.) It is believed, however, that the amo ransportation usually exceeds the stimates, inst ort. Furthermore, the Pacific Railroad act requires that on the completion of the Road five per cent. of the net earnings of the Road from all sources shall be paid into the United States Treasury annually, as an entirely additional resource to meet the Government bonds. But there is still another and greater source of economy that has not been adverted to: that is by the reduction of the military force itself, rendered possible by the extension of a Railroad through these remote sections-giving to one regiment by its greater mobility the efficiency of two, and building up settlements which will protect themselves against the Indians as they now do in eastern Kansas and in California. Lieutenant General Sherman stated in his recent testimony before the Pacific Railroad Committee of the Senate, at a meeting which was attended by members of the Military Committee of the House, that of the two regiments of infantry and one regiment of cavalry now quartered in New Mexico, the annual cost of which he estimated at about..... .$4,000,000 The extension of the Railroad to the Rio Grande would permit one-half to be dispensed with, thus saving to the Government, per annum ......$2,000,000 The cost of transporting supplies, etc., for the remaining one and a half regiments would be one-half of present demand, as above shown, and the saving would therefore be one-half of $974,452...... Total annual saving in War Department by con- Showing on this basis the annual saving to the Government by aiding in the construction only of 487 miles of extension from end of present subsidy to Albuquerque....................... 487,226 .$2,487,226 69,420 40,000 $2,596,646 At which rate the Government would be reimbursed for its entire loan in less than six years, and the subsequent saving in transportation would be a continuous clear gain thereafter, over and above the provisions for securing the repayment of the loan. And this provision, together with that for the retention by the Government of one-half its transportation bills, and for the prior and exclusive use of the Road by the Government whenever desired, are permanent conditions binding on the Road, no matter into whose hands it may fall, so that the United States is secured against any possible risk of loss. (See section 6 Pacific Railroad act of 1862, and sections 5 and 10 of amendments of 1864, pages 9 and 10 of this book.) But this argument, strong as it is to Albuquerque, is still stronger to the Colorado river, and even to the Pacific coast, because there is as large a force stationed in Arizona and Lower California* as in New Mexico, and the cost of supplying these troops, for the protection of the miners, transporters, producers, United States mails, etc., in that district, is even greater than in New Mexico.† It is the desire of the Company to begin, simultaneously with the extension of their track west from Kansas, the construction of their Road eastward from the Colorado, which is navigable for one hundred miles above where the Kansas Pacific Railroad Survey crosses it. The effect of this will be at once to cheapen greatly the transportation required by the Government for the supply of Fort Whipple and the other military posts in Central Arizona, besides dispensing with the necessity of maintaining a considerable proportion of the existing military force in that section, by opening up to settlement the valuable mining region between the Great Colorado and the Verde River and south to the Gila, with the rich and fertile parks and pineries in the vicinity of San Francisco Mountain, and of Prescott and other parts of Central Arizona. As a measure purely of military retrenchment and economy, not taking at all into consideration the increase of taxable wealth and national power to be derived from the development of a very extensive mineral region over one thousand miles in length, reported and known to be of great wealth, and from the settlement of the pastoral, agricultural and timber districts of New Mexico and Arizona and California, or the value conferred upon the Government lands *See List of Garrisons and Distribution of Troops, page 27. †Supplies for at least half of the military posts in Arizona are now shipped from San Francisco to Guaymas, Mexico, and thence by wagon to Tucson; transportation costing, by contract, $150 per ton in gold; half of which would be a high price by rail from San Francisco to the same posts. which now, from the Arkansas to the Coast Range, are lying entirely idle and unproductive, it is desirable that proper aid be extended by the Government to ensure the completion of this Road to the Pacific coast at the earliest possible day. Any postponement of this assistance, besides retarding the development of a large amount of mineral and agricultural wealth, is an immediate and unnecessary tax upon the military budget of the nation. We also find that the army is constantly obliged to build local wagon roads in the country under consideration, to produce, on a limited scale, an economy which the construction of this highway would ensure on a large and comprehensive scale. Besides these considerations, if a large Indian war were to break out, an event liable to happen at any moment, the saving in transportation shown in the above calculations, which are based merely on the present peace establishment, would inure to the Government much more rapidly. The effect of this Road in protecting the Mexican border is also worthy of earnest consideration, since it acts as a measure of prevention, in an economical way, of results, which might in certain contingencies, entail heavy expenditures upon the nation. The same is true of the entire southern border of our Pacific coast. We have purposely refrained herein from dwelling on those broader national aspects of the case which originally induced the country to adopt the policy of aiding these Pacific Railroads, but have almost entirely confined ourselves to the narrowest consideration of immediate economy to the Government, in the transportation of men and material, which, since they must be carried, necessarily raise the question of “how they can be carried most cheaply?” and in the still greater saving of the very necessity for such transportation. |