the books are in existence, without saying whether we shall examine the entries in them or not.

The WITNESS. I cannot see why they should not be in existence except that I wanted to find the Contract and Finance Company's books once, and tried to find them, and could not.

Commissioner ANDERSON. We ask you now to find the books of Charles Crocker & Co., or else satisfy us of their existence, so that we may test the question of whether we shall ask for their production or not.

The WITNESs. At least, they are not here, unless somebody has brought them here without my knowledge.

Commissioner ANDERSON. Our only desire is to know where they are. THE WITNESS. I do not know where they are. If I can find them when I get to California I will send them to you.

Mr. COHEN. I do not know about that.

We will see about that. The WITNESS. Provided the lawyers of the company do not object. I have no objections, so far as I am concerned.

Commissioner ANDERSON. It is your affair.

COMPENSATION FOR WORK DONE FROM NEWCASTLE TO EAST LINE OF STATE.

Q. Do you remember anything about the amounts you received for the work done by you from Newcastle to the east line of the State?A. No, sir; I cannot tell you about that.

Q. Have you any recollection of how much it was per mile for any portion of the work?-A. No, sir; it was by the yard.

Q. I mean how much it came to per mile?-A. No, I have not. Q. Do you remember that there were some miles of that work for which you received as high as $300,000 per mile ?-A. I do not.

Q. Or $400,000 per mile ?—A. I do not remember. Very likely there are miles of the road that cost fully that.

Q. I am only asking whether you recall what you did receive ?—A. I do not recall; I cannot recall so far back.

Q. Do you remember that you received a large amount of stock in addition to the cash payments ?-A. Yes.

Q. Do you remember how much stock in all you received?-A. No, I do not.

Q. Do you remember whether it was in excess of $10,000,000 ?—A. Oh, I cannot remember those things so long as that. It is a long time ago, and I had no occasion to treasure it up. There is nothing now here to recall it to my mind.

Q. You do remember that the amount of stock received by Charles Crocker & Co. was a very large amount of stock?-A. It necessarily would be.

AS TO DISPOSITION OF STOCK.

Q. Do you remember what disposition was made of that stock by you?-A. I do not remember now exactly.

Q. Do you remember that it was passed over by you to the Contract and Finance Company?-A. I think it was all put in together. I do not know, though, for certain; I think it was.

Q. What, exactly, do you mean by its all being put in together?-A. I was a stockholder in the Contract and Finance Company. The stock was not considered worth anything. I did not consider it worth much

of anything at the time the road was finished, and I think we put the stock all in together, but I am not certain about it.

By Commissioner LITTLER:

Q. You mean into the Contract and Finance Company ?-A. Yes.

By Commissioner ANDERSON:

Q. When you say "we," whom do you mean?-A. The other stockholders of the Contract and Finance Company and myself.

Q. Who were the others?-A. I do not remember. There were a good many of them.

Q. You remember that Mr. Huntington was one?-A. I never saw his name on the books.

WERE STANFORD, HUNTINGTON, HOPKINS, AND CROCKER DESIGNATED TO HOLD ALL THE STOCK?

Q. I do not say that you did; but there were certain persons who, you remember, were designated to hold the stock. Do you not remember that you and Mr. Stanford and Mr. Huntington and Mr. Hopkins were designated to hold all the stock -A. I am not certain of it. I know that they held most of it; but I am not certain that they held all of it.

Q. As far as your recollection is concerned, do you remember that there were any other stockholders who held an interest in that stock except those four and E. B. Crocker?-A. Well, I really thinkand yet I cannot swear it is so, but I rather think that W. E. Brown had some of that stock, and that Mr. Strobridge had some of it; I am not certain of it.

Commissioner ANDERSON. They have both been examined, and Mr. Brown said he was a representative of some of the others.

The WITNESS. Then, if you found those particulars from the books and other sources, why do you bother me about it?

Commissioner ANDERSON. I will show you in a minute.

The WITNESS. I cannot understand, if you found out all this information, why you bother me about it. I tell you that I have not the means here of refreshing my memory, and I defy you or any other man to remember such things as those after what has been done since then. Commissioner ANDERSON. We will go back to the disposition of the Central Pacific stock which you received. You say it was all turned in to the Contract and Finance Company-the stock you received?—A. I do not say so. I say I think it was. If you have been down there and have had access to the books, why do you ask me? The books are in your possession now, I understand.

Commissioner ANDERSON. No, sir; the books cannot be found.
The WITNESS. What books?

Commissioner ANDERSON. The books of the Contract and Finance Company.

Mr. COHEN. Every fact you wanted has been given.

Commissioner ANDERSON. I know; but you know that the conclusion which I want to reach necessitates this examination. Let us go on in an orderly way.

CONTRACT AND FINANCE STOCK.

Q. You spoke of all of you putting your stock together and turning it into the Contract and Finance Company. Had any other gentlemen

any of the Contract and Finance Company's stock, or was it not all turned over to you, on this contract?-A. They had considerable of it, as I remember. I subscribed for quite a large quantity of stock before the road was commenced.

Q. How much in all?—A. Well, enough to control it, all of them together.

Q. Was there over a million and a half that had been issued before you began your contract from station 31-A. I cannot say as to that. The books will show the whole thing.

Commissioner ANDERSON. I merely asked whether you had not become the holder of the bulk of the stock that had been issued at the time you completed this contract to the east line of the State?

The WITNESs. I think the Contract and Finance Company was.

BULK OF CENTRAL PACIFIC STOCK ISSUED TO CROCKER & CO. FOR CONSTRUCTION.

Q. Before the Contract and Finance Company commenced, had not the bulk of the stock been issued to Charles Crocker & Co. for construction?-A. As near as I can recollect, that is so.

Commissioner ANDERSON. Now, that stock,amounting to many millions of dollars, was passed by you to the Contract and Finance Company, as I understand it.

The WITNESS. Well what do you call "dollars"?

Commissioner ANDERSON. I mean the par value of the stock. That quantity of stock was passed over by you to the Contract and Finance Company?

The WITNESS. I think it was.

Commissioner ANDERSON. And in that company the gentlemen you have named were the stockholders, and as such became interested in the stock which was passed over to the Contract and Finance Company?

The WITNESS. Of course, if they were the stockholders they got the stock.

WHY THEY PASSED IT OVER TO CONTRACT AND FINANCE COMPANY.

Commissioner ANDERSON. Now I want to know why, if you were the only person interested in the contract for this 138 miles of road, and Mr. Huntington and Mr. Stanford and Mr. Hopkins had no interest at all, you passed over all the stock which you had received in payment to a company in which they were joint stockholders with you, holding equal shares of stock.

The WITNESS. Well, in the first place, I did not count the stock worth anything much only to control the road. In the next place, it was stormy times-I mean in the money sense. I was heavily in debt. The Contract and Finance Company was heavily in debt.

Commissioner ANDERSON. The Contract and Finance Company had not yet commenced operations; it had just been formed.

The WITNESS. But the stock was not put into that company until the road was finished, I think. I do not remember when it was done. Mr. COHEN. It was done a year after the road was finished.

The WITNESS. Well, it was done before, I know, because I had no inducement to do it. As near as I can recollect, the inducements for me were to get up a strong team, and unite our debts and unite everything, to succeed. I was afraid of being crushed out and 1 came very near it.

There was one time in my history, as I have said before, when I would have taken a clean shirt and quit operations, and I had commenced that railroad a rich man.

WHEN THAT WAS DONE.

Commissioner ANDERSON. What I want to get at is when you passed this large quantity of stock over to the Contract and Finance Company?

The WITNESs. I do not recollect.

Q. You do not know whether it was at the beginning of their work?— A. I know it was not at the beginning.

Q. Do you know whether it was after the completion of the road, in 1869-A. I cannot tell you exactly the time. My remembrance is it was after the Contract and Finance Company had found out that they were heavily in debt, and the railroad company was in debt, and I was in debt. There was a general weeping all along the line.

Q. Do you know when those tears were shed-at what period; was it in May, 1869, when the road was finished?-A. I did not say that there were tears shed. You know that I meant that in a figurative

sense.

Commissioner ANDERSON. So did I.

GREAT REJOICING ON COMPLETION OF ROAD.

Q. Do you know whether it was a fact that in 1869, when the road was completed, there was great distress-or was it an occasion of much rejoicing-A. It was an occasion of much rejoicing. The people were rejoiced to know that the road was finished, and they did not care a continental whether I owed a million or ten millions, or that Mr. Stanford owed it. They had got the road, and they began "cussing" us immediately afterwards.

EARNINGS OF CENTRAL PACIFIC UP TO MAY, 1869.

Q. Is it a fact that, up to May, 1869, the Central Pacific's account of earnings showed that it had actually earned up to that period, on its net income account, from two to three million dollars?

The WITNESS. Before the road was finished?

Commissioner ANDERSON. No, up to May, 1869-that its net earnings, over and above all liabilities, were from two to three million dollars?

The WITNESS. I do not remember that.

Commissioner ANDERSON. The reports of the company show that. The WITNESS. Then talk to the company. I was not a member of the company then.

Commissioner ANDERSON. But I say if it be true that your net earnings show that net gain

The WITNESS (interposing). But does not the same account show the interest amounts that we had to pay?

Commissioner ANDERSON. But I am speaking of everything-after paying interest charges, and all operating expenses.

The WITNESs. I do not think the company earned them.

Commissioner ANDERSON. Would you like to look at the interest account, which is here?

The WITNESS. No; if you know it, that is sufficient.

WERE SUITS BROUGHT TO RECOVER ON STOCK?

Q. Is it not true that within a year after the completion of the road suits were brought against Mr. Stanford, and maybe against yourself (of that I am not positive), in order to recover on stock of the road-to recover large amounts of money which it was claimed that that stock fairly represented and that the holders were entitled to receive-on the ground that immense sums of money had been made and misapplied by the directors of the road? Such suits were brought, were they not?-A. I guess so; but do you know whether they ever proved anything of the kind?

Commissioner ANDERSON. I did not ask whether they did or not. The WITNESS. There have been a great many of that kind of suits brought, and there have been a great many charges brought against the builders of the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad. They have been charged with everything you can imagine. Why? Because they built that road, and because they had connection with the Government of the United States in building it. Every politician, every little fellow that wanted to get to be a cross-roads politician, was engaged in hooting at the road, and they commenced such suits, but that does not prove that the company had the money that they charged it had.

AS TO SETTLEMENT OF SUCH SUITS.

Q. Now, as matter of fact, is it not true that all those suits were settled, and that the company paid, in order to settle the suits and acquire the stock, from $250 a share to as high as $1,700 a share?—A. No, sir; it is not true. The company never paid anything.

Q. Or that such payments were made by the individual directors against whom the suits were brought?

The WITNESS. Understand, I do not want to evade a direct answer to your question; but if I answer it directly, a false impression would go out. About the time of the bringing of that suit we had inaugu rated a Southern Pacific Railroad. We were going to build that. We had bonds to sell to the amount of $25,000,000 or $30,000.000 perhapsto a great amount at any rate-I have forgotten now how many there were on the market. The fact of any such suit being brought, and the newspapers all ready to publish everything that they could against the defendants in that suit and for the plaintiffs, injured the sale of those bonds. I wanted to fight the suits right out, notwithstanding that it would damage the sale of those bonds; but my associates thought it was better to pay these fellows something than to have this continued excitement and these continual charges and countercharges going through the press, to the injury of the sale of twenty-five or thirty million dollars of bonds-I have forgotten how many there were, but fully $25,000,000. I recollect that Mr. Huntington said that per cent. or 1 per cent. of the price of those bonds would more than settle this suit, and that it was better to do it than to suffer a loss of 2 or 3 per cent. on the sale of those bonds; and that was the governing principle that settled those suits. If I had had my way they would not have been settled. I think it was a great mistake to settle them.

Mr. COHEN. I have said to Mr. Crocker that he was a little mixed about his dates. It was other bonds that were to be sold about that time, such as the San Joaquin.

Q. Do you remember how many of those suits there were-the Lambard suit and the Robinson suit?-A. The Robinson suit was long afterwards.