Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific

So far as the author knows there is no published study which discusses in detail the important business problems con nected with the history of the Southern Pacific Railroad lines. Most of the books which contain references to the Southern Pacific or to the Central Pacific limit themselves to a few chapters upon the romantic aspects of their construction. The few works which treat of the later period confine themselves chiefly to particular episodes in Southern Pacific history, often with the deliberate attempt to discredit the railroad company. The truth is that most writers upon the Southern Pacific have relied upon the reports of the United States Pacific Railway Commission or on Bancroft's History of California, and very few have done original work from source material.

Yet the usable material dealing with the subject of Pacific railroads is abundant. The Southern Pacific has left a broad trail in California. The record of its doings is to be found in court reports; in state, city, and federal records; in the public testimony, or still better, in the private letters of owners or managers of company enterprises; in the reports of the com pany itself and of its engineers or other representatives; in pamphlets without number; in files of newspapers. It is true that much of the data is partisan and unreliable as to details. Yet a partisan statement is serviceable if one knows it to be partisan, and, if one has reliable information with which to check the unreliable, the extent of partisan exaggeration in a given case becomes itself a fact of no insignificant importance.

Most of the documents used in the following pages have been consulted in one or another of three large collections: that of the Bancroft Library of the University of California; that of the Hopkins' Railway Library of Stanford University.

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