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116 expense. The desert terrain between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras, through which the Central Pacific was constructed is similar to that through which the Mexican Central was built. A reference to Appendix 1 1 will show that in addition to a subsidy of 12,800 acres of land per mile a cost of $64,000 per mile was provided for, one-half being loaned by the Government on a second mortgage, the other half to be raised by the company on its first mortgage bonds. While the cost of constructing the Central Pacific was excessive, beyond question, the excess could hardly have been near 50 per cent, of the total cost. Yet we are asked by these champions of the Carranza revolution to believe that the "American speculators" who constructed the Mexican Central Railroad, accomplished that expensive work for a cost of $3,828 per mile, and that they did a great wrong to Mexico by accepting the government subsidy of $15,311 per mile, although it carried with it the obligation to transport mails free of charge for ninety-nine years and the provision that at the end of that period the road should become the property of the government free of all liens or encumbrances without the payment of additional compensation.

To say that the statement above quoted, that "not a dollar of foreign capital was used in financing" these subsidized railroads is false, would