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Ruthless as a Crocodile

In 1863, a little over a year since the Railroad Act was signed, Judah had a confrontation with the Big Four - specifically Huntington. Judah expressed strong objections to their way of doing business.

The Big Four had, in two years:
· Taken over the position of California governor
· Taken over the position of Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court
· Raised over $1 million in public money
· And had 'moved mountains' to get their project financed

The mountains they 'moved' were accomplished by hiring a State geologist to redefine where the western base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was. His findings set the base 7 miles east of Sacramento, when it had previously been thought to be 22 miles east. This enabled the Big Four to more easily meet their promised obligation to the US Congress - to reach the Sierras - faster, at less cost, and at much greater profit. (Congress was to pay $16,000 a mile for track laid in the Sacramento Valley to reach the mountains, and then $48,000 per mile once they started to cross the mountains. If they changed the start point of the mountains from 22 to 7 miles, what additional profit did they earn ?)

Judah's objections to these ruthless practices, which one newspaper called ruthless as a crocodile, forced him to withdraw from the corporation. Determined still to find funding to buy out these men, he immediately set sail for New York. But in crossing Panama (on the first trans-continental railroad), he contracted yellow fever and died two days after landing in New York on November 1,1863. He was then thirty-seven.

In the three years of their association, the Big Four had learned from Judah where to build the railroad, how to build it, and most important, how to fund it with someone else's money for their own personal profit. The Big Four now knew how to coax Congress into issuing more funding. Lincoln signed a second Pacific Railroad Act July 2, 1864, and a third March 3,1865. President Andrew Johnson signed further generous amendments to the Act on July 3,1866.