"I think there is no road in Texas that is to-day earning its operating and fixed charges. Every road, I think, has been or is in the hands of a receiver, excepting our great east and west line, which is supported by business going entirely through the State, which business could also be sent another way, and would be so sent, excepting that we believe the people of Texas will some time take a sober second thought and treat the railroads as they do other kinds of property. When that time comes I shall be ready to talk to you about your franchises, if it comes in my day, and I believe it will, as I think no other people are suffering from an unwise policy persistently pursued as are the people of your State. "Yours truly, C. P. HUNTINGTON." "Now, in the name of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, That he hath grown so great?" It was but a few years ago when this Mr. Huntington was keeping a small retail store in the city of Sacramento, and he exhibited then no greater ability, except perhaps that he was a little more venturesome, than thousands of others engaged in the same occupation; subsequently he engaged, with several others, in the Central Pacific Railroad scheme, and received from the bounties of our generous Government as his share of the profits in that enterprise several million dollars, which sum has ever since been continually swelled by the exercise of a power scarcely inferior to the power of taxing the property of the Pacific Coast. He has been so successful for years in manipulating Congressmen and State legislatures and shaping the policies of States that he now considers it impertinent and short-sighted for a people to take steps to limit his levies upon them. It is to be hoped that the boycotting and intimidating methods resorted to will have no more effect upon the people of that State than they had on the people of Iowa. Iowa is the queen among the States of the Union. No other State has so little waste land or is so productive. Her annual output of staple products amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in value. Her people are intelligent, progressive and just. None are governed more by the precepts of the golden rule, or are more disposed to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. She can well be proud of the progress she has made in State control of railroads. Let no backward step be taken. CHAPTER XII. THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT.