Revelations
Several embarrassing revelations in the late nineteenth century provided powerful evidence for those Californians who believed that the Southern Pacific Railroad had corrupted state politics. Two of the most damaging episodes involved the top leaders of the company.
David Colton was the confidential manager of the railroad's political interests in California. Following Colton's death in 1878, his widow sued the Big Four for cheating her out of part of her inheritance. During the trail, she introduced hundreds of letters between her late husband and other railroad officials. The letters starkly revealed the railroad's activities in influencing elections, reelections, and votes of members of the California Legislature.
Two members of the Big Four, Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford, became involved in a public feud in the early 1890s. Huntington publicly rebuked Stanford for using large amounts of railroad money to secure Stanford's election as a United States senator. Stanford's private secretary later published a series of letters filled with further charges of the wholesale corruption of national, state, and local officials by the railroad.
Anti-railroad candidates, pledging to end the corruption of government, won wide support from their fellow Californians. Adolph Sutro declared himself the defender of the people against the greed of The Octopus and was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1894.
Although the Big Four wielded considerable political power in the late nineteenth century, they also suffered several major defeats at the hands of their opponents.
Collis Huntington, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, supported proposals for federal aid to construct a harbor at Santa Monica where the railroad had exclusive access. Many of the leading citizens of Los Angeles wanted the harbor to be built at San Pedro, at a place that was free of railroad control. Huntington waged his battle throughout the 1890s but eventually had to concede defeat when a board of Army engineers approved the building of the harbor at San Pedro.
Government aid for the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s included federal loans of nearly $28 million payable in thirty years. As the loans became due, Huntington proposed a delay in payment of fifty to a hundred years. Huntington's proposal created a firestorm of opposition. When the proposal was defeated by the United States Congress in 1897, the governor of California proclaimed a public holiday in celebration.