Mexico, California and Arizona/Chapter 6
VI.
THE FERRO-CARRILES.
I.
THE ferro-carriles, the caminos de fierro, or railways, were the business of the hour. In speaking of the coming greatness of the capital I mentioned glibly the principal ones which are supposed to have a part in it. They are by no means all built. Far from it! It is not even certain that some of the most promising of them, on paper, ever will be built.
The matter of granting railroad charters in Mexico is by no means new. They have been granted for thirty years or so, to Europeans and natives, who did little or nothing with them. It was only when, under the adoption of a more enlightened policy, they came to be granted to Americans that the roads were built and the charters had a value. At once everybody who prided himself upon the necessary influence began to desire a charter also. He might not want to use it at once, but could keep it and see what turn things were to take. Or he might transfer it to some more powerful ownership to which it would be worth a consideration. This new ownership, too, might wait to see what was likely to happen. If railways promised to be profitable in the country, it was well for certain great corporations in the United States to have their feeders or extensions there; at any rate, they could keep others from the field till they should be satisfied of its character.
It is in this way, I surmise, that some of the present franchises have been got, and are reflectively held. There have been henchmen to procure them and turn them over to patrons, who wait a while before going to work, trusting to influence to procure the proper extensions and renewals of time, if needed.
Stories were afloat of practices employed in the obtaining of concessions and subsidies, which I should prefer to believe falsifications. I heard one or two of them, it is true, from somewhat inside sources, and such practices are not unknown elsewhere; yet I like much better to think that there are no persons of standing and influence in Mexico who could prostitute their high position, and put a shameless greed for gain before the public interest in a crisis like the present, as these stories seem to indicate.
"Why, in our great West," said an American visitor, settling himself back in his chair to complain vigorously of certain treatment he had received, "if an immigrant comes among us, we give him a lift. We help him build his house, or perhaps put him up a barn; and are glad to do it. If he has capital to start some kind of factory, we give him a piece of land free of charge. That is the American style. We put our hands in our pockets and pay out a little, knowing full well that we shall get it back in time in the greater prosperity of the town."
"Yes," I said, by way of sympathy with his aggrieved situation, and a proper pride in the American style of doing things, "and I am told that, in Chicago and St. Louis, they pay his hotel bills a while, and try to keep him, if not as a permanent resident, at least long enough to get out a new census, in which he may be included."
"But here," my interlocutor continued, " there is nothing of the kind. The first thing they ask about a newcomer is, 'How much can we make out of him?' They want pay for permitting him to do something for them. There is no public spirit, no local pride. What they want is exorbitant gains."
He went on to tell of an application for a charter by an American company, which was absolutely refused. They were afterward approached and told that the privilege would be granted to a committee of Mexican senators, who would in their turn transfer it to the company for a handsome consideration. The go-betweens in this negotiation declared that the personages who were to have the final voice in the granting of the charter, as well as themselves, would require to be paid, which might have been true, and might not. A liberal share of the subsidy to be voted for the railway was to be exhausted in this way.
I do not know whether this be anything more than political "striking," or black-mailing, with which we are familiar at Albany and elsewhere, and whether the corruption ever really reaches to head-quarters. At any rate, it was said that some part of the aid devoted to each several enterprise was diverted in this way to private benefit. The drainage of the valley had been offered in the United States at a reduction of forty per cent, from the amount voted by the appropriation bill, the difference to be retained by the purveyors of the opportunity. One hundred thousand dollars in cash was demanded, again, as a preliminary, for the opportunity to fill in the works of a certain harbor with stone at a reasonable rate. Such accounts may be worth looking into by Mexican authority, with the interest of good and economical work and the abatement of scandal at heart. There is probably no better form of patriotism for Mexico just now than a strict and uncompromising honesty of administration.
II.
There were entered in the convenient statistical handbook known as the "Annuario Universal," for the year, a list of forty-one railways as in explotacion (running), or under construction. But after many of those enumerated was inserted a note, to the effect that, owing to some unforeseen delay, the works were not yet begun. Taking out these, and a larger number on which, though technically begun, little or no labor had been expended, there was still an unlocked for array of constructed roads. Taking out the English road from Vera Cruz, and what had been done by the American companies, almost at the moment, these were found to consist of short bits of local line scattered throughout the country. There was not a through line among them; many were operated by animal traction only; they had been built by natives, been afflicted by bankruptcies and other troubles; and represented the railway situation of the country apart from outside assistance. You were even drawn a good part of the way by animals on the English branch from Vera Cruz to Jalapa; and in going from Mexico to the mines at Pachuca, after leaving the main line at Ometusco, we took first a diligence, and were then pulled by mules in a Philadelphia-built horse-car. The number of these isolated bits has not increased in the mean time, several of them having been bought up and incorporated in the larger enterprises.
In the mean time, however, the list of projected roads at least has been liberally increased. The Congressional session of 1881 was the most active ever known in the authorization of new enterprises on a great scale. The great Mexican Central, trunk line, had, however, been
chartered in 1878, and the Mexican National in 1880. The first charter under the modern movement dates from October, 1867; and since then the Mexican Government has issued charters for over 20,000 miles of road, with subsidies probably to the amount of $200,000,000.
Many of these, with their subsidies, have lapsed, of course. The Government is now held for about 15,000 miles of road, and subsidies of $90,000,000.
The enterprises on a great scale are all American, and the chief ones among them may be estimated roughly as follows:
Miles.
Mexican Central (Boston Company)............................... 2,000
Mexican National (Palmer-Sullivan)............................... 2,000
Sonora (Boston Company)............................................. 500
Mexican Southern (General Grant, President)............... 1,000
Oriental (De Gress and Jay Gould)............................... 1,200
Topolobambo (Senator Windom, President)................... 1,200
International (Frisbie and Huntington)........................... 1,400
Pacific Coast (Frisbie)................................................ 3,000
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Total....................................................................... 12,300
To these may be added the Sinaloa and Durango, from the city of Culiacan to the port of Altata, in Sinaloa; the
Tehuantepec railway, and Captain Eads's ship railway across the same isthmus, to take the place of a ship canal.
The privilege to build an American railway across Tehuantepec, it may be remembered, was secured (at the same time with the lower belt of Arizona) by the Gadsden treaty of 1853, supplementary to that of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The road was supposed to be needed for the
consolidation of relations with our then newly acquired territory of California. The Pacific railroad filled its place, however, and the project, taken up and dropped from time to time, has since had but a lingering existence.
jarring in transit, changes of direction will be made by a series of turn-tables instead of curves. The scheme is a startling one, and meets with no little opposition. It is still only on paper; but its proposer, who has abundantly vindicated his sagacity in constructing the jetties of the Mississippi and the great St. Louis bridge, remains firm in his conviction that he will be able to sail ships across the isthmus on dry land.
III.
The several enterprises are succinctly divided into two classes—those on the ground, and those on paper. It is not necessarily a disparagement to the last that they are still in such a condition, for many of them are of very recent origin.
The original Mexican Southern road is to run south from Mexico, by Puebla and Oaxaca (capital of the populous state of the same name) and the frontier of Guatemala, with branches to the ports of Anton Lizardo, on the Gulf of Mexico, and Tehuantepec, on the Pacific. It
is to connect also with the Tehuantepec railway. It relies, as a principal resource, upon the transport of the
valuable productions of a rich tropical country, as cotton, sugar, coffee, rice, and the like. Oaxaca is an important
small city of 28,000 people, birthplace of General Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican power behind the throne, and undoubtedly the weightiest person in the country. The
route will be a rugged one to build. Much of the area is high and salubrious. The Oaxacan Indians are a sturdy race, who have followed their leader, Diaz, and others in many a hard-fought campaign.
This company, however, has lately effected a consolidation with the Mexican Oriental, and both will henceforth be known under the name of the Mexican Southern.
The Mexican Oriental sets out from Laredo, on the Texas frontier, and proceeds to the capital by way of Victoria, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas. It claims to have a bee-line, and to be 200 miles shorter than any other. Its mission is to occupy the district between the coast and the Mexican National. It throws out a branch from Victoria to San Luis Potosi; and has a coast-line connecting Tuxpan, Nautla, and Vera Cruz. It is fed by some 12,000 miles of road under control of Jay Gould in the United States.
The International is chartered to run from Eagle Pass, in Texas, to the city of Mexico, occupying a field left vacant between the Mexican Central and National; and is allowed to have also a cross-line to a point between Matamoras and Tampico, east, and between Mazatlan and Zihuataneso, west. The theory of each, it will be seen, is to have an interoceanic line as well as a main line north and south.
The Pacific Coast road covers the right to a vast stretch, beginning at a point below Fort Yuma, Arizona, and connecting the whole series of Pacific ports down to Guatemala. The Topolobampo has also a long extension southward, to touch at some of the same points.
The Topolobampo route (Texas, Topolobampo, and Pacific) crosses the northern border states. It professes to be a shorter transcontinental route to Australia and Asia than any other that can be laid down on the map. It claims to have at Topolobampo, just within the Gulf of California, the ancient Sea of Cortez, one of the few fine harbors of the Pacific coast.
These harbors are spaced at wide intervals apart. That of the Columbia River of Oregon is the highest up. Then, 600 miles south, comes San Francisco; 441 miles below this is San Diego; 650 miles farther on, in a direct line, or 936, doubling Cape St. Lucas, is Topolobampo; and 740 miles south of this again is Acapulco. Between them all there is nothing worthy the name of harbor.
Topolobampo city, within the confines of the state of Sinaloa, exists only on paper as yet, but nothing is more impressive in its elegant regularity and finish than a paper city. It claims to be 800 miles nearer New York than San Francisco by railroad travel, and that a person coming from Liverpool to Sydney, Australia, would save 600 miles in laying out a course from Fernandina, Florida, by New Orleans and Topolobampo, which is indicated as a route of the future. If some of these representations be correct, no doubt it will be. We live in times of a ruthless commercial greed which is stopped by no sentimental considerations of vested rights and convenience. We have but to see a short, through line, with possible economies, to build it with all possible despatch.
The road in question is to start from Piedras Negras, on the frontier of Texas, and make for Topolobampo, across the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora, with branches to Presidio del Norte, also on the Texas frontier, and to Alamos, in Sonora, and the port of Mazatlan, down the coast. These routes pass near, and would greatly facilitate operations in some of the large
silver-mining districts, of late entered with success by American capital and immigration. The reports of its surveys chronicle an engaging prospect in various other ways. It passes from belts of tropical products to those of white pine, oak, and cedar, and others fitted for cereals,
grass, and cotton, with a rich iron mountain, and deposits of copper as well as silver.
The maxim is laid down that a railroad pays, in local traffic, in proportion as one section of its line supplies what another lacks. If the situation be as represented, Topolobampo seems provided with most of the essential conditions of success.