Rare Books
A catalog of seventy-five first editions of modern poetry : including some very rare items
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[Unmarked item, but folder label reads, "Estimates of Earnings -- SPM 230-01."] Discussions of amounts paid to parent SP company; includes six-page letter from Walter Douglas, SPdeM President, to A.D. McDonald, SP President, dated 5/22/33 -- a highly lucid explanation of operating results for March 1933 versus March 1932, including discussion of main decreases in revenue coming from heavy dropoff in tomato and vegetable shipments, sugar revenues, corn revenues; discussion of arrangement with NRM regarding rate reductions of ~10% for shipping of beans, corn, cattle, rice, salt, flour, garbanzo beans, etc.; the rationale for such reductions ("to enable West Coast Producers to compete with producers in the Central Valley"); costs of advertising for 1932 [first time I've seen any info on how much SP spent on advertising for anything], including a breakdown showing how much was for radio broadcasting, how much for a Mazatlán Easter excursion ("a great success"), etc. MANY good items herein. For instance, another letter dated 5/15/33 from Douglas to McDonald, explaining increases in various items over the previous year, and thus quite revealing of pieces of the SPM's finances, because it lists the "why" for the increases as well as the types and dollar amounts. Includes some salary data, advertising expenses, stationery and printing costs, tie renewals ($19,000; apparently tie expenses were a very high cost and directly related to SP's strategy, stated elsewhere in this collection as noted above, to get the line back into the black by farming and shipping local Mexican woods both as exports for U.S. consumption and as a forward linkage for their own construction needs.)
Manuscripts
These materials, consisting primarily of correspondence but also including maps, news clippings, photographs, and blueprints, are arranged and bound by topic according to the Southern Pacific's internal organizational schema. There are 160 individual bound items in these 23 boxes. Each grouping is in reverse chronological order as it was originally filed by SP de México administrators. Collection has material in English and Spanish.
mssSPdeMéxicocollection
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[in manila envelope with Item 2 below] "Proposed Construction by Mexican Government of Railroad from Terminus of Inter-California Southern Railway to the Gulf. Possible Sale Inter-California to Mexican Government. Possible Abandonment I.C.S." File No. 080-2, Part 2. From (~1.25"). Mexican government apparently wanted to buy this line from the SP, but didn't have cash. SP proposed a trade of Mexican fuel oil, enough to meet the SPM's 700,000 barrel-per-year needs, for some period of years, in exchange. It appears that govt. finally decided to take line in exchange for paying 2% of gross receipts to the ICS (and thus to the SPM), after several other creative (and apparently unsuccessful) proposals. Apparently labor issues were a key factor in the relinquishing of this line, and considerable railroad labor discussion and detail is included herein. Other items include a letter from Walter Douglas to Obregón about the ICS, dated 5/13/39; a curt letter from Walter Douglas to A.D. McDonald in NY that notes that "Mr. Guy Shoup seems to be disturbed over the fact that the ICS has no right of way through the Andrade Lands, title to which seems still to be in litigation... I can see no reason for going to this expense at this time. So far as the Southern Pacific of Mexico is concerned, our tracks pass over hundreds of kilometers of lands to which we have no legal title, and I don't see any reason why in the case of the ICS any additional cost should be incurred by purchasing a right of way from which we will probably never be disturbed. We have written to Mr. Shoup to this effect...." Very rare to see this kind of candidness from the SP in any of published material on them! Most of their corporate records have very carefully excised or hidden this type of admission... and one reason the SPM's records are such a great hook into the parent SP corporation
Manuscripts
These materials, consisting primarily of correspondence but also including maps, news clippings, photographs, and blueprints, are arranged and bound by topic according to the Southern Pacific's internal organizational schema. There are 160 individual bound items in these 23 boxes. Each grouping is in reverse chronological order as it was originally filed by SP de México administrators. Collection has material in English and Spanish.
mssSPdeMéxicocollection