Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS
Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads by Dee Brown

America and the world were eternally transformed by the steam-powered Industrial Revolution. Imperialistic expansion driven with steam power augmented an avalanche of emigrants fueled by unscrupulous robber barons who used the very best politicians that money could buy. These manipulative financial tricksters sold and resold paper certificates as flimsy as blue sky to eager investors. I loved this true story that is guaranteed to arose in you a strong emotional reaction.
Worthy of more than five stars.

Excerpts from Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow:
With all these arranged riches awaiting the taking, Durant was now ready to begin railroad construction, and his first move was to send one of his New York henchmen to Omaha to sound out Peter Dey. The chief engineer had already submitted estimates of construction costs per mile for the first hundred miles across the rolling prairie country of eastern Nebraska. Dey’s estimates averaged between $20,000 and $30,000 per mile, and Durant knew that Dey’s figures were close to the real costs. What Durant wanted was an inflated estimate, at least $50,000, which would pour $20,000 to $30,000 per mile of excess profits into the closely held Credit Mobilier.

They collected the $16,000 per mile from the government for the track laid by the workmen, the $25,000 per mile of excess profits from Credit Mobilier, the 12,800 acres of land per mile, and whatever else they were able to divert from the sales of stocks and bonds. Instead of singing, they were always spending money to generate money, and there never seemed to be enough.



Although the people of America were paying for the railroad it did not belong to them.
James Garfield did not die of a broken heart, either. His Ohio constituents returned him to Congress three more times, and then the people of America elected him President, which might be an indication that Americans would sooner vote a rogue into its highest office than an honest man.



By the 1880s, railroad building in America had become the national get-rich-quick game. Promoters by the score leaped into the competition, building railroads helter-skelter across the face of the land. Few of them were planned to meet any transportation needs. They were built mainly for purposes of financial exploitation, not for the people of the nation, who ultimately paid for them over and over again, through economic depressions and wars, thus perpetuating the most absurd railway system in the world.



The spiritual life of Plains Indians were based upon the buffalo. That animal, which numbered in the millions, supplied not only the basic food, shelter, and clothing needs of the tribes, it was also a folk hero and a religious symbol. Without the buffalo, the entire civilization of the Plains Indians would collapse. In the years following the Gold Rush of 1849, the tribes had seen the buffalo pushed both north and south of the white man’s westward trails, and in the 1860s they had seen the railroads across the Central Plains bring devastation to once-great herds.