Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-06-17
For the Kenosha Telegraph.
TO CITIZENS OF KENOSHA COUNTY,
CoNcERING THE RAILROAD.

/ 81
In the growth of cities and counties, as
truly as In the prosperity of individuals, there
are times which require to be eagerly impro-
we'd, and opportunities which can hardly be
regained If once let slip. A railroad has its
seed time as well as a cornfeld. The money
for building it is the seed; the surveys are
the ploughing; the tearing up of weedy OBJ
stacles and objections, which have always to
be met is the narrowing; and the many be-
nefits of the railroad when made, are the har-
vest
Now there are hundreds of men in anoth-
er county who would gladly have your har-
vest to themselves, in addition to all their
own. They have been busily at work while
your friends have been going at a sleepy rate /;
and they intend to have their riches all safe,
whatever may become of yours. There are
some men, also, not out of the county, but of
your own number, who wish You well, no
doubt, but who have cherished the idea that
You need not look and labor for your own
railroad, because there are men who will cast
in the seed for you, and you will have the
crop at any rate. Fellow citizens, be not
thus deceived. 1t has been said lately, on
good authority, and with good reason, that
capitalists abroad do not put their money in
to railroads unless the people put theirs in
largely first, because they do not feel safe in
giving up their funds to those who will have
no interest TO manage and control them well.
But i the men in Albany, in Boston, in New
York and other large cities, who have their
thousands and ten thousands to invest at good
profit perceive that you put your own shout
ders to your work and benefit and show your
own confidence in the improvement, they will
listen to. statements and proofs respecting the
work and its paying character. Otherwise
they will turn a closed ear to you. but an OPP
en- one to your more sagacious neighbors, and
will strike hands with them simply because
they see the providing dollar at home for
every three or four they ask from abroad.
The good effects of railroad are felt fif-
ty miles each way, when there is none near
er. When the projectors of the Milwaukee
and Mississippi railroad were pushing their
enterprise west they found sixty miles back,
wheat that had remained stacked three years
being worthless because it would not pay la
Dor and transportation, although wheat at the
time would bring sixty to seventy cents a
bushel at Milwaukee. How heavily, then,
must the increase of profits count in the far
mers' pocket when, instead of fifty miles, his
lands lie within from one to ten miles of this
railroad, and where lie can take advantage of
the best sales, because, upon a rise in the
market, he can push his entire crop down at
once.
The writer believes it was not in Kenosha
county that man, for five years together, fed
himself so poorly that he had but half strength
to plough his fields, because bread and meat
do cost something, and kept only two lean
oxen for his work because well fed teams are
too costly in their keeping. But rumor says
it is in kenosha county that the idea has been
preached that the people ought not to pro-
vide for increasing their income hundred
thousand or two hundred thousand dollars
year, because they might have some increase
Of taxes. Fellow citizens if you agree to
such Il doctrine why should l object? If 4
hundred thousand or two annually to the
county is not worth fifty to eighty cents to
an inhabitant in your case, it is not in mine.
1t would be easy to show that there is little
prospect of increased taxation, but on the CON
trary that the railroad itself-half a million
in yalue-will bv added to tavahlo property.
But this objection is not worth an extended
answer, except such as your own good sense
and acknowledged facts supply. The work
that engages our present attention, requires
the united cxertion of hundreds of the best
sort of people, while the trumpeting about
taxes can easily be done up by three or four
patriotic citizens, or dozen at farthest
Rail roads are good peace-makers. They
bind country and city together Some three
years since, an individual in Kenosha became
the occasion of loss to many honest and hard
working farmers in the country; but now
Kenosha has pledged two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, to this labor saving and
wealth bringing construction-and Kenosha
is not one-third of the county Kenosha has
done it for her own benefit and the benefit
of the country from which her trade is to be
derived, Here is a real and an indestructi-
bic union of interests.
Fellow citizens, lift up your eyes to the ex-
tended regions between Lake Michigan and
the Rock River Valley rail road, and also be-
tween the last and the Mississippi, besides all
north of GAINESVILLE, wherever that rail road
NAV be extended. Observe that the construc-
ton of about fifty miles by yourselves, will
give the shortest continuous way from Du-
buque to the lake, and will ultimately open
not less, probably, than four hundred miles of
inland commerce to your port and market
Consider the effect, in addition to the monied
increase from crops and lands before spoken
of having through your heart circulating
life-current from the fields the forests and the
rivers of those regions alluded to, also with
transit of thousands and tens of Thousands,
who will see your farms in all their Thrift and
make good report Of them to Others. The
best acquainted among you have not, proba-
bly,, much doubt that the county will come
forward next year if not decidedly now. But
can you afford to lose the year? Count the
remaining years of life, We men of mature age
and sober thought, and say, can you individ-
ually afford even one years unnecessary him
drance ont of the small number left you. But
will one year sum up the whole account p
1t NAV rise to five or ten or an unknown num-
Der in consequence of allowing precedence, in