The New York herald., 1862-03-26
The Broadway Railroad Bill.

The Broadway Railroad Btli.
The time for Speaker Raymond's plan for re-
organizing the lobby has passed. Like an ad-
died egg, it has been set upon too long by the
committee, and turns out worthless. Mean |
while the lobby has reorganized itself 1t has
taken the name and title of a corporation, and
seeks charter and franchise. 1t calls itself
the Broadway Railroad Company, and boasts
OF being monopoly. 1t seems destined, like
most monopolies, to be successful. 1t processes
to hold the keys of legislation, and to own GER
tain legislators, whom it has elected expressly
for its purposes. If not rich in money, it is at
least rich in promises and stock. 1t threatens
that no bill shall pass whose makers oppose the
Broadway Railroad BILL 1t promises that all
bills shall become laws, that all jobs shall be
duly authorized, whose makers and supporters
will work and vote for the Broadway Railroad
bill. 1t has purchased the silence or the assist
snce of almost every paper in this city. Thus
rich, thus unattached, and making all other laws
and jobs thus dependent upon the passage of
its own bill, the lobby regards its triumph as
certain. !.
I, Soft may be; but, for the sake of honesty.
justice and fair dealing, we doubt it. 1t is .
fact 80 evident as to be undeniable that the
people of this city do not want Broadway
Railroad, and are most strenuously hostile to
any such scheme. The property owners along
Broadway unanimously oppose the BILL There
are no city men of any character and influence
who ask for such road. The parties who
apply for this franchise are notoriously un-
known and unheard of strangers, with no
interest in this city, with no stake in its pros
perity and welfare, with no knowledge Of its
sentiments and wishes. They have the good
grace to acknowledge this openly. They con-
fessedly rely for success, not upon justice or
merit, or the expressed desire of the public, but
upon the members whom they have elected ex-
pressly to vote for this bill; upon the opera
tions of the lobby; upon the selfinterest of
those who have other jobs on hand and cannot
get them through until this bill is passed, and
upon shares of stock in their proposed road,
offered literally to every journalist of any in
auence, and accepted, we are sorry to say, by
the editors of almost all of our leading papers.
Such engineering is the very best proof of the
positive injustice of the bill, and ought, of it.
self, to kill it. So indeed it will, if the Legisla
t,re has any regard for the interests, or respect
for the wishes, of the people of this city.
In times past, however, such regard and re-
spect have been too seldom shown for any de-
pendence to be placed upon them now. But,
if the Legislature insists upon a railroad
through Broadway, the people have another
objection to this bill. 1t gives valuable fran
chise away gratis. It robs the city Of New
York of grant worth FIVE or six millions Of
dollars, and for which one or two millions have
already been offered. 1t deprives us Of the
right of building and running the road for our
selves, and of lessening our heavy taxes
million of dollars year by its earnings. We
insist that this is downright swindling and
gross stealing. The legislators have no more
right to rob the city of a franchise worth so
much money than they have to pick pockets on
Broadway. In effect, they do pick the pockets
of every taxpayer in New York when they
take from the city 80 feasible means of re-
ducng the taxes. Morally they are no better
than the burglars and thieves who fill our
prisons nor does their guilt become less be-
cause the amount of their stealings is greater
All of our criminals together have not stolen
over hundred thousand dollars in the year
past; but the Legislature proposes to rob us
of five millions Of dollars in single day, for
the benefit of q parcel Of unknown mob odies
picked up in country highways and city by
ways and labelled the Broadway Railroad
Company. 1t needs great patience to cOntem-
plate calmly fraud 80 monstrous, an iniquity
so enormous, perversion of legislation SO un-
paralleled. What term is bad enough for men
who not only consider, but actually proceed to
endorse, such an atrocious swindle?
We hope that, if there is any honesty in the
country members, and any appreciation of the
wishes of their constituents in the honorable
gentlemen from this city, the bill will be voted
down. The objections to it are twofold:
First, that tho people want no Broadway Rail-
road; second, if the road must be endured, it
ought to yield revenue to the city and be en-
trusted to proper hands. We hope that mass
meeting of our citizens will be held shortly to
vigorously protest against the bill.
THE FRENCH SENATE.-Prince Napoleon has
been creating novel sensation in the French
Senate, which turned that usually grave legisla-
tive assembly into little better than mob of
angry and excited disputants. There were no
bowie knives, revolvers or shillelahs brought
into requisition-ther was not even a resort to
muscle-but the spirit evinced was the same as
if weapons other than words and gestures had
been employed. Prince Napoleon rose to make
a speech on the address to the throne in which
he warmly defended democracy, and in the