The Brigham Young Center

Salt Lake City, U.T.
Oct. 8. 1868.

There is much dissatisfaction among the men, and many of them have gone off from the railroad, in consequence of the large amount of time lost by having to wait for tools, and for the road to be laid out by the construction party, -- amounting to over Forty eight Thousand Dollars, and the extra day work done in Echo last June, amounting to a greater sum probably, not having yet been paid, nor any part thereof.

There is also considerable complaint by the sub-contractors not being allowed in many cases for anything but earth when there was large amounts of cemented gravel where it would take 3 men to pick for one shoveler. In one or two cases the men have made affidavits on the subject.

The monthly estimates have often been only about one third or one half of the value of the work done, and in the majority of cases so much less than the reality that very many of the men are unpaid and numbers are compelled to leave the work to provide for their families, in some other way the necessary food and clothing. Some of the subcontractors have borrowed money at 2 per cent pr month to meet these demands, and the failure in the estimates prevents the payment of such obligations and the best men <from> being retained on the work.

President B Young has received from the Company:
Cash          $182.063.<75>
Tools &c.        61.415.01
Total           $243.478.76

every dollar of which has been paid out to the subcontractors, together with $46.860.00 besides, of his individual means, to aid in keeping the men on the work, but it is greatly insufficient, and the men are
pretty generally discouraged.