Business, as usual

I finished the book, Web of Deceit, by Barry Lando. It was a good read from beginning to end and should be required reading in history classes, beginning in high school.

So much of what we read, or are forced to read while in school is simply ‘pulp fiction’. My own moment of clarity came while taking a history class at Moorpark Junior College and the instructor told us about the history of California and the railroad. It seems that California was underwriting the construction of the railroad by paying x number of dollars for each mile of rail completed on level ground and xx number of dollars for rail built on mountainous terrain. The rail barons, Crocker, Stanford, Huntington etc, saw an opportunity in that and went to key legislators and were able to have the state constitution amended to declare that the entire state was mountainous… from end to end. Not a single mile of flat ground was to be found. And you won’t find that in your school history books.

Of course you have to believe that this was an aberration and could never happen today. Right!