d not be elected were he not a
"railroad man," provided that office was one wherein the holder could
injure the prospects of the proposed road. Through the counties where
the line was supposed to run, the question was strongly agitated, for
those counties were expected to assist the undertaking, by voting
their credit in various sums. So eager were the people of the interior
of the State to have the enterprise commenced and completed, that they
were willing to accede to any terms which would insure the success of
the enterprise and relieve them from the oppression of a powerful
water monopoly, which controlled a majority of the shipping both via
the Panama Route and around Cape Horn.

The members of Congress from California knew that their election was
in part owing to this feeling, and that much was expected of them by
their constituents. They failed not when the time arrived, but to
one--A. A. Sargent--more than all others, is California indebted for
the great work which now binds her to her Eastern sisters.

But we are proceeding too fast, overlooking, but not forgetting,
another name, none the less honored because the bearer lived not to
behold the final completion of the work he initiated and so earnestly
advocated. Theodore D. Judah now sleeps the sleep that knows no
awaking, but still his presence can be seen and felt in every mile of
the grand road which his genius brought into being. His name was a
household word in the West, for thousands knew and appreciated the
manly spirit and genial mind of the earnest, persistent and sanguine
Engineer.

In the then little hamlet of Sacramento, dwelt C. P. Huntington,
"Charley" Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and a few others--warm personal
friends of Judah--who, often, in the long, winter evenings, gathered
around the stove in Huntington and Hopkin's store room, and there
discussed the merits and demerits of the Judah theory. These and some
other gentlemen became convinced that the engineer was right--that the
scheme was practicable. They subscribed fifty dollars a piece, and, in
the summer, Judah and his assistants made a careful survey of the
passes in the Sierras. This was in the summer of 1860, and in the fall
the engineer party returned, toil-worn and travel-stained, but vastly
encouraged and elated with the result of their summer's work. So
favorable was the report that fifteen hundred dollars were immediately
raised to be used the following summer in the same manner. The