In opposition to the railroad proposals, western shippers, who represented the extreme anti-railroad sentiment, violently objected to a refunding bill of any description. It was the belief of California men that a refunding bill would simply saddle the railroad debt upon the shipping public. For the railroad would make the necessary annual payments for interest and sinking fund from the proceeds of rates, which would necessarily be paid by the shipper. As able a man as John T. Doyle, of San Francisco, maintained, moreover, that refunding was unnecessary, because it would be found that the assets of the Central Pacific would be adequate on foreclosure sale to meet both its first and its second mortgage obligations. In saying this, Mr. Doyle relied upon the ability of the government to hold directors of the Central Pacific personally liable for misappropriation of funds, as well as upon alleged illegalities in the issue of first mortgage bonds, and upon the chance that the courts would consider the San Francisco terminals of the Western Pacific, together with other miscellaneous property, subject to the lien of the government mortgage, although the property was not “bond-aided” in a narrow sense.[562] Pacific Coast Agitation As an example of the feeling in the West concerning the policy of refunding, particular reference may be made to expressions of opinion in the city of San Francisco. In May, 1894, a mass meeting of citizens of San Francisco elected a committee of three to proceed to Washington and to oppose the funding of the debt of the Central Pacific Railroad to the United States. In a memorial addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives, and designed to oppose the Huntington scheme of a long-time extension of the subsidy bonds at a low rate of interest, this committee said: In the name of the people of San Francisco, of California, and of the whole Pacific Coast, we protest against the acceptance by Congress of a plan which will keep more than $77,000,000 of the public’s money from being paid to the United States Treasury, and which will secure in their present wrongful possession of that sum, besides promoting their other selfish and unpatriotic schemes, men who have for thirty years been wrecking a railroad, defrauding the Government, corrupting public morals, plundering and oppressing the people, and violating every principle of business probity, of law, right, justice, and public policy.