The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1860-06-02
ST. LOUIS AND THE PACIFIC r.. r.

4
''Some of the latest accounts from Pixies
Peak represent that rich gold deposits have
been found southwardly on the head waters
of the Arkansas. To reach this locality as
also Pixies Peak, it has been suggested thai
one of the shortest routes is from Bates
county in this State, via the Big Bend OF
the Arkansas, the old Santa Fe trail to the
Cimarron crossing. and to Bent's Fort, from
which there is an easy road to the Peak and
the head waters of the Arkansas. The
route is it, well known, traverses country
over which there is for the most part one OF
the best natural roads on the earth's surface.
To the Big Bend of the Arkansas is rather
short of two hundred miles. And to Col
orado city, Pixies Peak, it may be safe to
say THAT the distance can not much exceed
FIVE hundred miles. This is by far the
shortest route, and is suggested as well
worthy the attention of capitalists who are
engaged in the staging business. The face
of the country between the present termin-
us of the Pacific Railroad and Butler in
Bates county is favorable to the cheap open
ing of an excellent road, which would rem
der the communication very easy.
eve might add in this connection that,
if one road only 10 the Pacific be built,
justice to the whole country requires that
the act authorizing its construction should
be so framed as to avoid all danger that
private individuals should be able under it
to wrest the route to the injury of large
section of the country. 1t is therefore
proper that the act should do, what is done
in the bill reported from Mr.. Curtis Com
mittee, that is fix termini within certain
limits; and not leave them to the pleasure of
those who may get possession of the road
under the act. The route and termini are
all west of the Mississippi, and ought to
have respect for the great geographical fea-
lures of that region. We have the river
Missouri as one of these features. 1t is
therefore but proper, in order that the ben
e6ts of the roads shall be apportioned equal
ly, that the termini should be established
for any road pretending to be central and
that one of these termini should
with the system of roads north of
that river, and the other with the system
south of that river. Congress cannot, it
appears to us, sanction any scheme by which
a company, either of the Southerners or
Northerners, shall make road purporting
to be central and national--and really, as it |
must be, constructed from funds furnished
by the Naticna! Treasury-which road will |
be used to build up exclusively either the
South or North. Such Legislation. we are
satisfied, will not be countenanced by Con-
yress.'
Tile above article possesses deep sig
ni6cance. 1t is indicative of return, on
he part of St. Louis, to her old policy of
building road to the Pacific along the line
If the 38th parallel. The veto of Gov.
Stewart to the law granting State aid to the
Dad from st. Louis to Kansas City, and
he recent discoveries of gold on the head
waters of the Arkansas, are the influences
which have produced this change. st. Lou
s knows that the straightest, shortest and
best line to the Pacific, for her at least, can
De built on the line of the 38th parallel
This road will drain into her Golfers the
wealth of Central Kansas and the Rocky
Mountain Gold Mines, and when completed
will be the main trunk route to the Pacific.
The effect of this change of policy, on
he part of St. Louis, will produce an i'm
favorable effect upon the Usage
Valley d Southern Kansas Railroad, that
annot but hasten its completion. st. Lou
5 has spent millions in constructing road
n the direction of the Kaw Valley, follow
ug the line of the Missouri River, which has
Iever brought her any return, and never
Fill. She has opened her eyes to this fact,
nd henceforth her policy will be to reach
he Pacific by way of the rich fields of
outh- western Missouri and Central Kan
as, while yet there is a chance.