Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-01-13
The RrIdgc Qpestlon.

of Henry Clay, August 1st, 1850.
The Bridge Question.
To ALLOW a railroad bridge to be built at
Steubenville, without one being. built at
Wheeling, would not only be piece of
great wrong and injustice to the two roads
terminating here, the Baltimore & Ohio
and the Central Ohio, but it would be an
unequal discrimination against our ship
pers. The want of such bridge is severe
ly felt by that class of citizens. They pay
large additional tax for transportation
that they would not pay had we bridge.
In the single item of metal alone, our man.
facturers are sufferers. The cost of hauling
to and from the other side OF the river is
large item to them in the course of year.
So is to other shippers. Had we bridge
they would have that reduction, with all its
advantages, in the market for their pro-
ducts. They must take into the account
in their sales every item of expense.
This is one item, and places like Pitts
burgh have just the cost of the item
in advantage. Shall we play into the
hands of foreign competition still further,
by giving it additional advantagesf A
wise policy would say, no And if the
Legislature of Western Virginia will not
protect the interests of its own shippers,
who will protect it for them1 Certainly
our rivals will not This is plain, and
yet while it is SO, we are obliged to insist
upon it rs an argument against the en-
deavors of the Pennsylvania railroad to
subordinate US to It's exactions. 1t seems
strange that so obvious matter as this
whole scheme of the Pennsylvania Rail-
road should be 4 matter of difference among
any of our legislators. But so it is. Some
of them doubtless look with favor on the
Pennsylvania Railroads scheme, or else the
question of releasing it from its obligations
to us would not be mooted. We are at
loss to know what redeeming feature the
project has to the eyes of the advocates
and friends of release. Certainly it can
have none to those who represent the Bal
timOre railroad counties, and they are here
in sufficient force to defeat the project, and
it is to them that VIC appeal. They will
Nfiict themselves and their people if they
do not defeat the scheme. They must see
that. Certainly they do not favor it out of
any dislike to this immediate locality. 1t
has always been said and it is favorite
argument with tho secessionists, that the
city of Wheeling has her worst enemies in
the Western counties, and that the only
real legislative friends she ever had, were
in the East. Whatever force and truth
there may have been in this assertion in
times past, there ought to be none now.
This bridge is not n matter that can incite
local jealousy against this city so far MS the
chief counties of North Western Virginia
are concerned, and whatever their feel
ings may have been in times past on other
questions, Mt this time they ought, from
selfish considerations alone, to be a unit
with US on this question. The Baltimore
road is their interest ms we'll as ours. Quite
as much SO. 1t is their only road. It is
not so with US. We have access to the
East through nm other point. They have
not. And whatever cripples and disables
the Baltimore road below an honest COM
petition, will be felt by the people whose
counties it drains of marketable produce.
We are not to be understood as cham
pioning the Baltimore roads interests per Sc.
In times past we have had frequent occa-
siOns to advert upon the uu-local and sell
fish spirit which it has exhibited not only
towards our city but towards all our
North Western Virginia people along its
line, in the matter of its rates. But one
thing at time, as Old Abe said in his last
messages and the greater always before
the lesser evil when we are considering
evils and their remedies. What we want
all of US, now, is to see that we are not
changing bad for worse. Tho Baltimor re
road is our protection against the merci-
less cxactions of rival, just as that rival
has been very often our profession against
it. And this is the condition of things we
want to keep up. We want to be mastered
and injured by neither the one or the other.
We are not willing to commit our interests
to the the tender mercies of any sOulless