The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1855-10-24

The Albany Seward Organ and the Herald
stock and Political Operators and Morals
We give place to noteworthy article
from the abolition organ of Seward and Garri-
son-the Albany Evening Journals paper dis
tingushed for it's fidelity to political operators,
and having an affinity for the stock gamblers,
as would appear by the tone Of its comments
upon this paper. The highest compliments
that are paid to the HERALD are such as are
found in the Journal. We are not, and never
have been, the organ of either political or stock
operators. Our course for twenty years has
been uniform, and we can look back upon the
long line of fraudulent institutions against
which we have continued to warn the commu-
nifty until they have toppled and fallen /;
against bank railroad, insurance and mining
swindles, with the full consciousness that
though we may have interfered with the tinan-
cial schemes and profits of the Peter Funks
of the Stock Exchange and their newspaper
organs and coadjutors, we have served the
cause of common honesty and protected the
interests Of the unwary.
Not great enterprise looking to the perma-
nent welfare Of the country-not an honest
effort to advance and promote the substantial
interests of the city and the Union-not a.move
ment of individuals, based upon the principles
| of integrity, has been made that has not found
| in the HERALD cordial and friendly encou-
ragement. On the other hand combinations to
| detraud an unsuspecting community-such as
that detailed by the Journal which is small
| example, and is, therefore, condemned by that
paper-laws procured to give peculiar advan-
| tages to corperators stockholders and opera
tors-whether from Congress or the State Lee
(gislatures-we have regarded with suspicion,
and held to a strict accountability.
We start with the general proposition that
in the United States, railroad, mining, and Of
ten manufacturing companies, are put into
operation upon speculative basis. Those
who take the initiative are expected to derive
peculiar advantages. Practically, in nine
cases out of ten the originators of these move
ments so arrange matters as to secure for
themselves not only all the profits, but too Of
ten all the capital invested. We need only
refer to the formidable list of mining and rail-
road companies put into operation or started
and abandoned in the last five years, to prove
| this. OF the former scarcely one is left to
| remind us Of their existence, and of the latter
only one in ten is able to make any dividend
| to its stakeholder, They are called compa-
mics, but, in truth, they are devices, intrigues
frauds. They are organized after the forms of
! law, but in the process of organization-in
| the initiatory management-in the interior
| and anterior arrangements half dozen cor
porators contrve to absorb all the real bene-
fits Of their respective concerns, and when they
go into operation the outside world is surprised
to find SO wide disparity between their we'll
grounded estimates and the results.
In England, and in all the old countries,
where, either from deeper moral sensibility
or from the operation of more stringent laws,
enterprises Of the kind are fixed upon scale
of absolute equality-where, if losses occur,
they are equally borne by all, and if profits
are made, they are equally enjoyed by all
there does not exist SO great a necessity for
continued watchfulness on the part of the
| press.
The truth is, in the United States the lead
| ing political press is, to great extent, iden-
| titled with private speculations-stocks and
| contract jobbing--railroad and canal works
and perhaps there is not a paper in the whole
Union more deeply involved, directly and in
directly, in such nefarious transactions-one
more thoroughly stepped in the iniquities of
public plunder-one more regularly installed
| in the very centre of the temple of political
gambling, than the Albany Ecening Journal.
To be charged with mercenary motives-with
being in the field of private speculation-fro
such a source is the highest compliment we
could receive.
The subject which, on the present occasion,
has excited the ire and drawn out the rancor
of our amable contemporary is the New York
Central Railroad whose character and posi-
tion have lately been carefully analysed by our
financial editor, and who has done little more
than to republish the tables of the State Eng
gineer, VIM. j. McAlpine, Esq. on the subject
of the road, its consolidation, its cost, its con-
dition, its expenses and its income. Without
going into the details'of this matter, which we
leave to another department of the paper, we
may assert that the Central Railroad cost, &C
| cording to the statements of the Engineer
named, S3s,5O0,OO0; and despite the positive
averments of the Journal, we have the authori-
ty of one of its directors for saying that its
floating debt is not less than million more.
| Now, without saying another word, the in
ference is unavoidable that that company has
had the benefit Of some exceedingly sharp men
in its direction. That by fair and honest deal
| ing ii cost any such amount--that its stock
| holders enjoy equal privileges with its origna-
| tors and managers, we have no idea that the
Journal or any sensible man in the State be-
lieves. More than nine months ago the stock
holders of the concern appointed q committee
to investigate the charges preferred by the
HERALD against the proceedings connected
with the consolidation, involving all the points
in dispute. Why has that committee neglect
/ ed to make renort This fact itself far more