The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-10-21
OVERLAND NAIL ROUTES.

bands of India.
OVERLAND NAIL ROUTES.
The President of the United States coneratu
lated the President of the Overland mail Com
pany upon the first arrival of the mail at st.
Louis, in twenty-three days from San Francis
co, in the following suggestive note, which il
worthy of repetition in our columns
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 1853.
To John Butterfeld, Esq, President of the
Overland Mail Company
"SIR: Your dispatch has been received. /
cordially congratulate you upon the result. Il
is a glorious triumph for civilization and the
Union. Settlements will soon follow the course
of the road, and the East and the West will be
bound together by q chain of living Americans
which can never be broken. k
"JAMEs BUCHANAN"
1t is known to the mass of our readers that
this mail route, established by the United
States Government, at An annual cost of six
hundred thousand dollars, def cts southwardly
from St. Louis, through Arkansas and Texas,
and then proceeds westwardly along the 3lst
or 32d parallel of latitude until it reaches
Southern California, where it turns again to the
north, and terminates at San Francisco.
The motive which dictated its selection in
preference to the northern and middle routes,
which are pursued by all emigrant trains, was
the qualification of Southern sectionalism, and
to take the initiative in the matter of building
the Pacific Railroad. A large portion of the
route was known to be an uninhabitable
desert, where neither man nor beast can live,
and in which the stations established for the
relays of horses have to be supplied with water
hauled fifty or hundred miles. But no mat
ter | The South demanded the sacrifice of the
public convenience upon the altar of Slavery
propagandism, and the South must be grati6ed,
at every cost and we are now told that q great
success has been achieved in the conveyance
Of sir passengers and bundle of letters from
San Francisco to St. Louis in twenty three
days by the Southern route.
The expedition may be creditable enough
to the contractors, but it is still bowshot be-
hind the steamers, which convey hundreds Of
passengers, together with millions worth of gold
dust, and some tons weigh, of mail matter
from San Francisco to New York, in precisely
the same length of time Where, then, is the
utility of this grand Overland Southern Mail
Routef Certainly it does not consist in any
facility which it affords to commerce, to the
transportation of the mails, of gold dust, or OF
passengers. 1t will be idle to look to this
source for any improvement in mail facilities.
The rates OF transportation and travel are
now exorbitantly high. A single line of steam.
ers, by the Isthmus of Panama, enjoys mo.
nopoly of the whole business; but soon, we learn,
two other lines will be established-ttbe nns
thFRnSgh M,icssc0E Ms1;co Ths batter
will be at least two thousand miles nearer than
that by way of Panama; and when the two ex
tremities of the Isthmus are united by rail
road, not more than one hundred and fifty
miles in length, the trip from New York to
San Francisco may be made in fifteen or al
most eighteen days.
Nothing, therefore, short of Pacific Rail.
road, can transport the mails and passenger
between the two oceans in competition with the
Ocean Steamers.
The real utility of an Overland Mail Route
is suggested by the President in his note quoted
above. Such route properly located will pro.
mote the settlement of the interior, and bind
the East and the West together "by chain OF
living Americans, which can never be broken
This is true statement of the value of o YER.
lane Mail Routes, and the idea that the great
mails OF the great body of passengers can be
conveyed by stages three thousand miles, in
competition with ocean steamers, is simply
ridiculous. The great mails and the great body
Of passengers will continue to go by sea. Per.
sons in any of the Atlantic States will continue
to sail from New York, and those from the
West, even from Missouri and Arkansas, mus,
do likewise, if they 60 in large bodies, since q
dozen passengers would load down the stages
and any excess above that number would be
compelled to wait two weeks in order to secure
a seat. .r..
But line of stages, while it can only be 9
drop in the bucket in the way of Transporting
mails and passengers, will, if properly located
be the nucleus of q chain of civilization extend
ing from the frontier settlements of the MISSES
sppi valley to those of the Pacific coast, and thu.
encourage and protect the overland emigration o
the farmers of the West, with their wagons ant
teams, their Aocks and herds. Let overland
mail lines be established, therefore, with thi
object in view, and they should not be confnet
to Southern or Northern sectional routes
There should either be one central line, or tw,
or three such lines, located with reference ex
clusively to the public eonveniencs, asd no
with the idea of promoting sectional interests
Common sense would at once pronounce il
favor of habitable route or routes, in prefer
ence to one through an arid desert in which
neither man nor beast can be supplied will
food and water, without the expense Of trans
porting them upon the back of the camel fol
hundreds of miles.
The lines pursued by overland enigrantl
from North or South, from Wisconsin otArkan
sas, and whether bound for Oregon or Califor
MIA, have invariably been in the higer lati
tudes, where grass and water are abunAnt and
where, consequently, the fertility ofthe soil
would, with proper encouragement am protec.
ton, hold out inducements to make ornament
settlements. The stations for relays horses
would each be the nucleus of vhge and
neighborhood of farmers, and these sklements
might be still further encouraged by rants on
the part of the Government of bountlands to
actual settlers. A strip of country BE or ton
miles wide, or even two or three Ii strips,
across the continent, so far from 6tracting
from the aggregate value of the lss, would
augment that value, and at the san time, Is
the President aptly saws, bind tl1pEast and