Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-07-20
The Pacific Railroad.

ticipated in the prosecution of the project
for the construction of railroad to the
Pacific, we may mention the conflicting
interests OF various bands of specializing
gentlemen, who are preparing, each set,
to leave no stone unturned so to connect
themselves with it, as to make fortunes
out of it. Perhaps dozen of these knots
OF pubhc-spirited gentlemen are getting
ready to urge Congress to undertake the
work on Government account, proyided
they 1.-THE National LEGISLATURE will legis-
late them indirectly to be the inheritors of
the proposed Government expenditures to
this end. The company not long since
chartered by the Legislature of New York,
so far, form the principal set of these peo-
pie; for they are travelling the country
over, drumming here, there, and every
where. to bring sufficient influence to bear,
to induce the Government so to dispose
OF this project next winter as that it will
be the property of themselves, ''their
heirs, administrators and assigns when
completed, as they propose, by the appli-
cation of public lands, which are really
public money. We are opposed to all
special contracts whatever on the part of
the Government of the United States: and
more especially, to any such contract as
might install single private corporation
into the ownership of such work, if built
at the public expense. We differ, how
ever, from those who expect that the Gov
eminent will soon build this work. If
but because it appears plain to US that
there is to be much trouble from the va
rious parties interested, as we explain
above, and others equally as determined
that the work shall be made, if made at
all, through the region of country wherein
their own property lies. Thus, there are
parties preparing to move heaven and
earth to carry it via Natchez, Mississippi,
and San Antonio and Ell Passo, Texas.
Others are to insist that the only proper
route is to be via Memphis, Tennessee,
Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Fort Webster,
In New Mexico. Other parties again will
protest with vehemence that st. Louis is
to be its Mississippi valley terminus,
while still again others have not the least
idea of permitting the construction of any
such work at the expense of the National
Treasury, unless it strikes as high as
Iowa, On the Atlantic slope What a
pulling and hauling time Of it we shall
have concerning this project, between
these various interests And then there
stands in the way the fact that nine
tenths of the proposed road is to be made
through a wilderness wholly unsettled,
if not quite as barren as the desert of
Arabia, whichever route may be selected.
On the the back of all this comes the
econ Jmical and constitutional scruples of
nearly if not quite moiety of both
houses ofCongress. Under these circum-
stances, the reader will not vote us dun
der-heads, because We do not fall into the
current newspaper impressions that the
Pacific Railroad is to be built right off
by Uncle Sam.
We shall have high times in Washing
ton next winter over this question; and,
ere the session closes, such will be the
developments made concerning the sinis-
ter purposes of many interests endeavor-
ing to take the lead in the matter, as to
postpone its construction we fancy, until
private enterprise may undertake at least
to prosecute it as far as it can be so
constructed. We are among those who
question seriously theprOpriety of having
the Government embark in such an enter
prize; believing that it can be done by
private capitalists for half the money its
construction would otherwise cost, and
that if undertaken by the Government it
cannot fail, in the hands of either political
party, to become monstrous engine of
general corruption in public affairs. The
country not long since escaped from a
galloping down-hill career after that
fashion, and the people at large have
hardly done blessing their stars over the
fact that Congress promptly took meas
ures to check this tendency of the business
of the Government.
Railroad and Steamboat Accidents