James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (The Oklahoma Western Biographies Book 12)

Johnson, exasperated by Rayburn’s continued failure to understand the new realities, wrote the Speaker that “these $200 driblets will not get the job done.” What was needed, Johnson said, was to “select a ‘minute man’ group of thirty men, each of whom should” raise $5,000, for a total of $150,000…. “This should be done between now and next Wednesda

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Aspinwall, with the help of a generous government franchise to carry the mail to California, had established steamship lines to and from Panama on both oceans. So except for the land barrier at Panama he could provide through steamer passage from New York to San Francisco. The railroad, then, was to be the vital land link in the system—in a grand,

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