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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (295530)	3/8/2009 12:04:56 PM
From: DMaA	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793839

One question you'll never see: How did government collusion enable and protect the corruption of the railroads?

To: LindyBill who wrote (295530)	3/8/2009 1:10:37 PM
From: ManyMoose	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793839

A good book on the subject is "Nothing Like It In The World," by Stephen Ambrose. He describes how the transcontinental railroads were conceived and built. Nothing Like It In The World Jefferson Davis commissioned a survey of potential rail routes when he was Secretary of War. The record of these surveys is massive. You wouldn't want to drop just one of the volumes on your foot. I've been through Volume XII, and it is really quite amazing, complete with drawings of the landscape that are so skillful that one can recognize familiar places, of which I know several. Isaac Stevens conducted the survey. He became governor of Washington Territory and a General in the Civil War where he lost his life. Leland Stanford, the governor of California, was one of the principal movers and founders of Central Pacific. Initially he was an active "anti-Chinese" zealot, but later changed his mind when it became apparent that they would be needed to build the railroad. The government funded the transcontinental railroads with huge land grants, there being no money and no place to borrow it from. The effects of these land grants are still in flux to this day. Some of them are being returned to the public. The thing revisionists fail to recognize in their zeal to condemn the history of the United States is that for all its faults it had a better end result than any other. That assumes that they are unable to undo it with their newfound power.