If you have to pay money to have the right thing done, it is only just and fair to do it.... If a man has the power to do great evil and won’t do right unless he is bribed to do it, I think the time spent will be gained when it is a man’s duty to go up and bribe the judge. A man that will cry out against them himself will also do these things himself. If there was none for it, I would not hesitate.[314] Further Evidence More important than the record of such general expressions of opinion are the affidavits filed in the San Francisco subsidy litigation described in an earlier chapter. Nor is anyone likely to read the letters of Mr. Huntington to Mr. Colton in the late seventies without becoming convinced that the possibility of purchasing votes was constantly before Huntington’s mind. Huntington wrote Colton at one time that the (Southern Pacific) company could not get legislation unless it paid more than it was worth.[315] In another communication he said: “If we pass the Sinking Fund Bill and beat Scott and the Union Pacific, it will hurt us not less than half flora”;[316] and in still another we find the cheery comment: “Matters do not look well in Washington, but I think we shall not be much hurt, although the boys are very hungry and it will cost considerably to be saved.”[317] In November, 1877, Huntington wrote Colton: You have no idea how I am annoyed by this Washington business, and I must and will give it up after this session. If we are not hurt this session it will be because we pay much money to prevent it, and you know how hard it is to get it to pay for such purposes; and I do not see my way clear to get through here and pay the January interest with other bills payable to January 1st, with less than $2,000,000, and possibly not for that.... I think Congress will try very hard to pass some kind of a bill to make us commence paying on what we owe the Government. I am striving very hard to get a bill in such a shape that we can accept it, as this Washington business will kill me yet if I have to continue the fight from year to year, and then every year the fight grows more and more expensive; and rather than let it continue as it is from year to year, as it is, I would rather they take the road and be done with it.[318]