The proposal that a competing railroad should be built from San Francisco Bay to the interior was not a new one in California in 1893. On the contrary, in February, 1892, President Stetson, of the Traffic Association, told a reporter that no less than nine propositions had been submitted to him as president of the organization, looking to give San Francisco a competing line of railroad. These were successors to still other plans prepared in earlier years. Most of the schemes proposed to Mr. Stetson involved the construction of lines out of San Francisco to a connection with the Santa Fé, but two or three of them contemplated construction from San Francisco across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the termini of the Union Pacific or the Rio Grande Western. At the time, President Stetson replied that he was a merchant and had neither the time nor the money to build roads, although he added that San Francisco merchants desired more railroads and would under reasonable conditions and at the proper time furnish substantial encouragement to one or more feasible railway projects.[452] Soon after this, possibly at the suggestion of Mr. Leeds, steps were taken to investigate the possibilities of a line from San Francisco or Oakland to Stockton and thence eastward through Nevada and Utah to Salt Lake City. In May, 1892, a company was formed under the name of the San Francisco and Great Salt Lake Railroad Company, to build from San Francisco to Stockton, with an initial capital of $2,000,000. This was the moment when the Traffic Association was vigorously pushing its plans for the encouragement of water competition, and when it was beginning the legislative campaign mentioned in a preceding paragraph. Little active support could therefore be expected from the San Francisco shippers, although the executive committee of the Traffic Association authorized Mr. Leeds to give the projectors of the San Francisco and Great Salt Lake the benefit of his advice, and the California League of Progress formally indorsed the enterprise.[453]