Fortunately for the company, the cost of labor on the Central Pacific and transcontinental lines does not seem to have been excessive. The total number of men employed ranged from 1,200 in 1864, to 14,000 or 14,500 in 1867, when construction was at its height. White men, of whom there were some 2,500 or 3,000 in 1867, received $35 a month and board as common laborers, and from $3 to $5 a day as skilled mechanics. Most of the track laborers, however, were Chinamen, who were paid $35 a month, and boarded themselves.[102] These Chinamen proved reliable and willing workers, and, because of his experience with them, it was with distinct reluctance that Mr. Stanford in later years allied himself with the friends of Chinese exclusion.[103] Letting of Construction Contracts Such obstacles as these made the task upon which the Huntington-Stanford group had entered a formidable one indeed. Just how the difficulties should be met, Mr. Huntington himself did not know. Arrangements were first made with small contractors for the building of stretches of road from Sacramento towards Newcastle. Charles Crocker resigned his directorship in 1862 and took the first contract for 18 miles. Then Cyrus Collins and Brothers got a contract which they did not complete, and other contracts were let to Turton, Knox and Ryan, C. D. Bates, and S. D. Smith. Mr. Crocker says the people raised a hue and cry saying that he was a favored contractor, so that the directors told him that he could not have more than two miles of the road between the 18th and 30th sections.[104] He adds that the independent contractors got to bidding against each other for laborers, and thus put up the price. Huntington was told that the smaller contractors quarreled with each other, and tried to “scoop” labor from each other;[105] while Mr. Stanford says that the small contractors did not finish their sections in consecutive order, that they did not hurry, and could not be sufficiently controlled.[106] At any rate, after the completion of section 29, no more contracts were let to anyone except Charles Crocker and Company. According to the associates, it was not so much a question of price as one of organization and control. This may be true, or it may be that the associates finally decided that it would be easier to make a satisfactory profit out of government subsidies by doing the building themselves, than by beating down subcontractors to the lowest possible contract price. It should be noticed that the change in policy referred to did not take place until 1864, when the federal Act of 1862 had been passed and that of 1864 was imminent, and that the Central Pacific did not select any single contractor, but gave all its work to Charles Crocker, one of the original associates. Contracts with Crocker