Identifier: belltelephonemag19amerrich (find matches)
Title: Bell telephone magazine
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: American Telephone and Telegraph Company American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Information Dept
Subjects: Telephone
Publisher: (New York, American Telephone and Telegraph Co., etc.)
Contributing Library: Prelinger Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ould probably havedoomed the Whitney proposal. Awar with Mexico had been fought andwon, and vast territory, lying alongthe Pacific to the south of Oregon, ^ladbeen acquired by the United States.Oregon was no longer the sole consid-eration in discussing plans for a rail-road to the Pacific. Moreover, goldhad been discovered in Californiaearly in 1848. The rush of treasureseekers—the famous Forty-niners—into the gold fields made it certainthat, when such a railroad was builtto the Pacific, its western terminuswould be nearer than Oregon to thecenter of population of this newly de-veloped area. Economic needs—and,later, political needs—were to deter-mine the route of the projected coast-to-coast railroad. Even as early as the date of Whit-neys third memorial, in 1848, thesame political factors which enteredinto the debate over the choice ofroute for the Overland Mail weremaking themselves felt. As senti-ment for a railroad to the Pacific grew f 940 The Conquest of a Continent 295
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AN INCIDENT OF RAILROAD BUILDING IN THE WEST The jet of steam projected forward from above the engines cylinder was the regular meansof scaring buffalo off the track. (From a painting owned by the Union Pacific Railroad) stronger, differences of opinion as tothe location of its route became moremarked. Sentiment swung, withchanging Congressional majorities,from the northern route proposed byWhitney, to a central route, a south-ern route, or a compromise by theadoption of three routes. A historianof this period has said that it is diffi-cult to determine whether the Pacificrailroad project came nearer beingtalked to death by its friends than byits enemies. For more than a decadethe controversy raged, and was notfinally settled until the secession ofthe southern states gave the propo- nents of a central route a clear oppor-tunity for action—and until that samesecession had made action imperative. Lincoln Signs the Railway Act JjjVEN with the southern membersabsent from both houses of

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