WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
339
Mr. Houston. Mr. President, I should like to know if the mail from St. Louis and Memphis goes to California, if it is not the same mail that stops at Fort Yuma. Does the honorable Senator wish to arrest that mail, or to abolish it? Mr. Broderick. I want to continue it. Mr. Houston. If he wants to continue it, this is necessarily a connection formed there. It is not an additional route. It is not a parallel route; for there can be but one contract from El Paso to Fort Yuma and to San Diego. The mails connect at El Paso; and it is the same thing whether it is done or not, unless you abolish that route from Memphis and St. Louis by way of El Paso and Fort Yuma. But there is a junction of mail routes there, and they are continued from thence on to Fort Yuma and San Diego. It is the same route. There are not the same con- tractors on the same road in any one point in the United States; so that the gentleman misapprehends the object. If it is to ter- minate at St. Louis, in Missouri, or any other point, why did not the Salt Lake mail afford all the facilities, if it is most convenient and expeditious to St. Louis, and if St. Louis and Memphis are entitled to them? Why, pray, are not Texas, Sonora, and southern California entitled to the continuance of that El Paso route? All we ask is a fair share of.intelligence. We do not ask for any peculiar favor. This route has continued for a length of time, and it is growing, from all experience, to be the most important route that we have; and yet there is an effort made to strike it down. I have no disposition to occupy the time of the Senate, which is precious; but the proposition is so novel in its character, so un- called for, and seems to be predicated upon a prejudice more to the contractors than to the necessity of continuing this route, that I could not resist the inclination I have to do justice to all sections of the country. 1 Congressional Globe, Part 2, and Apvendix, 2d Sess., 35th Congress, 1858-1859, pp. 1503-1504.
TO GEORGE W. PASCHAL 1
Independence, June 3, 1859.
George W. Paschal, Esq., Dear Sir-On yesterday I yielded my own inclinations to the inclinations of my friends, and concluded, if elected, to serve the people as the Executive of the State.
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