In the winter of 1860 there was a Wall…
source date: 1890
availability: public-domain

In the winter of 1860 there was a Wall street lobby at Washington exerting a strong influence on the government to get a subsidy of $50,000,000 for carrying the mails overland for one year between New York and San Fran- cisco. In those early times this seemed an enor- mous sum of money to ask Congress to appro- priate for such a purpose, and the lobby did not meet with much encouragement.