Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1859-06-01

from them, that any substantial difference
viii be found to exist. We find no fault with
the committee for doing what they supposed
to be their duty. We only wish to do our
duty by submitting facts, and showing them
from our point of view to our fellow-citizens.
After this is done, we leave every man to the
deductions of his own reason. We believe
the road can be built with the aid now asked,
bat if our fellow citizens should differ with us
IN opinion, 1t may save us, or our successors
as Directors, some years Of labor at once
"proftless, sIavish and inglorious." Our
statement, It will be noticed, is in different
shape from that Of the committee of the City
Council, and from that of the President of the
Company. We have preferred to present
1t In this shape, because it is simpler and is
Ineligible to every one. fit ens at all, the
error in our opinion will be found against the
company, not in its favor.
NECESSITY OF THE ROAD.
Our duty would not be fully accomplished
If we did not add a few words upon the
Importance of this road to Nashville. We
have used the word importance "-we
should have said the necessity" For, it
needs no prophetic skill to foresee, that with
out this road, our career Of prosperity will be
greatly retarded If not permanently affected.
Memphis and Charleston have passed us ON
the south-Memphis and Louisville are pass-
ing US on the north-Cincinnati and Selma
may pass US on the east, as the Mobile and
Ohio road passes us on the west. We are left
high and dry in little cove, while the great
currents Of trade and travel sweep by us on
either hand, to enrich our more enterprising
neighbors. AS it is with individuals, SO it is
with cities. Our wealthy citizens are the
industrious and the enterprising, not the lazy
and the idle Our prosperous cities are those
which exert themselves to control the traffic
of the world. In the present age, the prosper
Ity of city is proportioned TO its railroads.
The iron river completes even with navigable
waters. A railroad follows the meanders of
the Hudson, runs parallel to the Ohio and
the Mississippi, and skirts the great Lakes of
the North. For as to be without railroads is
to be nowhere. Now, look at the map and
see the position you occupy. You have rail-
roads running North east and Southwest, and
railroads running South and North. But, for
one half of the horizon, one hundred and
eighty degrees of the great circle, from De-
catur on the South TO the State line on the
North, we have no Western outlet "Cribb'd.
iniI
jail-birds, we look out on the prosperous and ac-
tive world beyond us. Shall this continue,
or shall we make one more effort to complete
our railroad system? Give us this road and
we have the shortest line through us from
the Northwest to the South -east-we have
the shortest line from East to West-we have
the shortest line from the North and East to
Mobile and New Orleans, those great marts
OF the South. We come again into the cir-
Gle of our sister cities, and begin anew our
race for precedence. And now is the time
Tor action. Another Legislature may deprive
us of the State aid, without which the enter
prise must of course fail. Shall we, for a
Paltry tax which no one will sensibly feel,
lose the present opportunity
LIABILITY OF THE TAX PAYER.
We say paltry tax, because the burden will
be only about one and half per cent, or
one half OF one per cent. year on each per-
sons taxables, spread through a period of
three years. Who would feel that, in COM
parison to the benefits he must derive direct
ly and indirectly from the completion of this
road, even if the amount was to be consid.
cred dead loss But it is not dead loss
under the proposition upon which you are
called to vote. BY the law under which the
election is ordered, each tax payer is entitled
to scrip for the amount SO paid, which he
can turn into stock or use in the payment of
freight and passage on the road. Every mer-
chant in Nashville would use up the amount
OF his taxes in single year after the road is
completed, and the scrip will be equal to
money. If the tax payer does not choose to
take scrip or stock, we propose to give him
second mortgage bonds of the road at eighty
cents in the dollar These bonds may be re-
tanned as good permanent investment; but
if the holder prefers, there can not be a
doubt that he may dispose of the bonds in
the market, perhaps at the rate at which ne
receives them, but certainly at a loss of only
five or Ten per cent. SO that, in reality, when
you come to look at this proposition, you see
that you lose nothing, or a mere trife, by the
tax that you pay, and will ensure to your
selves and your posterity a road, which not
only renstates you at once upon the great
highways of your country but will form a
medium of trade and travel for all time to
come.
N. BURNS,
w. F. COOPER,
D. T. MGAvoCK,
t. L. BRANsFoRD,
JNo. B. JoHNsoE,