hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

602 KAILROADS—SOUTHERN PACIFIC SYSTEM.
tors, was forwarded to the California congressmen,
approving the pending bill for the use of Yerba
Buena island, requesting California senators and representatives
to use all honorable means to secure the
passage of the bill, and declaring that the island was
the natural western terminus of the Pacific railroad.
The Yerba Buena island project had been very
cautiously brought forward, and, when discovered,
aroused a strong and combined opposition in San
Francisco. Protests were addressed to congress;
government engineers were required to report upon
the consequences of closing up the channel between
Oakland shore and the island, and military officers
upon the importance of retaining it for the defence of
San Francisco. Over and above all these reasons for
refusing a lease to the Central Pacific company was
the declaration that the company had no good reason
for insisting upon a present from the government of a
property commercially worth at least $6,000,000, and
that a lease would be equivalent to a gift, for once
established on the island, with all its connections with
the mainland made, it would be impossible to dislodge
it. The bill failed at that session of congress, although
the effort to secure the island was not relinquished for
some time, 8 but the battle was transferred to San
Francisco, where, for a period of twelve months, it
raged with a determination proportioned to the interests
at stake.
On the 7th of March, 1872, the chamber of commerce
took up the matter, and passed a series of
resolutions against the proposed cession of Yerba
Buena island, or a portion of it, to the Central Pacific
railroad company. In these resolutions the company
was handled without ceremony, and especially its
friend, Senator Sargent, an able and popular statesman.
A memorial was prepared, addressed to the
.* Huntington was reported as saying that 'Goat island was th« proper
and only place for the railroad terminus of the Overland and Sacramento
valley lines.'