Evansville daily journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1863-1866, 1865-09-20
Col. Jones and the Straight Line
Railroad Co.

Col Jones ana the S1PaIgnk Line
Railroad Co.
To the Mayor, Council, and Tar Payers
of EransrfRe:
In my Communication to you OF the
5th instant, did not propose to submit
the merits Of either Col Jones or my
self for yOur confederation, bat simply
the merits Of the resurrection Of the
late Straight Line Railroad Company.
Col Jones, in the J0urHa[of this morn
ing, pretends to answer my letter, and
well knowing the utter want of merit in
his railroad project, confines himself to
the gratuitous discussion Of himself and
myself. It is of no serious Importance
TO you whether / am the salaried Presi-
dent of the K ( C. Railroad Company
or Col Jones the paid or unpaid sttor-
ney Of the New York purchasers Of the
unfinished road-bed of the defuuct
Straight Line Railroad II is Of no i'm
portance to you, whether Col. Jones or
myself were in times past in favor
Of or opposed to the Straight Line Rail-
road; whether wrote one pamphlet
against it or dozen; whether the con
Germ died of the frauds of its managers,
Of which it assuredly died, or came to q
sudden death at the point Of my poor
pen-no matter. 1t is dead. Bet il has
not been dead so long but that il stinks
in the nostrils Of every tax payer in the
community.
But it 10 OF importance whether you
now pay to these New York spectators
hundreds of thousands of dollars for q
worthless grade which they recently
purchased at auction for song, and
which they nov hold on speculation. 1t
is Of importance that the next railroad
project you 60 into, shall be altogether
above suspicion. II is Of importance,
that the next corporate and individual
railroad subscriptions you shall make,
shall be such as will rather encourage
than discourage any future attempt BY
you at railroad building refer you
to my letter, and assert that Col. Jones
has not in his whole letter of two coll
umns contradicted a single material as
aertion, or answered single argument
which / advanced
I told you in my former letter that
/ Col Jones's road to the O i M., was at
the most distant point only twenty-five
miles from the e. q c., and had no 9TH
sr business to support it than is now
being done By the T. 4 c.; that it is to
all intents and purposes on the self
| same route as the f. 4 c.; that the
Z. & C. r r. has never yet had busi.
ness enough 10 enable ii TO run an ex.
press train, or to decently support itself,
and that the sure result of the con-
struction Of bis road, would be that nei-
ther road would get business enough mot
to enable them to pay dividsnds) but to
keep them in safe running order, so that
| you could safely travel on them, and
they would, as all such roads do, become
| dangerous aud murderous machines.
| told you that the E. L c.. Railroad was
now earning only $4,000 per mile
per annum, which is beggarly that
whilst be proposed to divide this 81 900
| per mile per annum between his broad
guage and the E. & G. narrow-guage, the
Ohio and Mississippi broad-guage Rail-
| road, Of which bis Evansville and Gin
cinnati Railroad is a mere branch, is
earning twice as much per mile per an
| mum as the E. d c., and always has done
so, and yet has up to this time, scarce, A.,
If at all, paid its running expenses. /
| desired him or you to consider what, I'M
der this state Of facts, is the probability
that bis broad-gusge branch road could
keep itself in safe running order To
| illustrate my position, | told you that
the cities round the Falls of the Ohio,
when they contained about $4,000 inhab-
itaRts, tried the experiment Of two
narrow-guage roads, honestly and cheap
| ly built, running out into Indiana from
the Ohio, as these roads Of ours would
do, bat starting the one above, the other
below. the. Falls, aud FIVE miles apart, and
crossing the o. & NJ r r forty miles
apart, that Notwithstanding the Frank
fort r r. and several pikeswere running
out into Kentucky in an opposite diree-
| ton, before the compilation of the
Louisville & Nashville Railroad, both
lne se railroads became insolvent for
| want Of traffic, from which insolvency
only one Of them has as yet recovered.
! drew the inference that if Louisville,
| New Albany and JefersonyiIle, with the
distractions to navigation offered BY the
Pals, could not support two narrow
4
vile, with less than 10000 people and
no distractions to navigation, could
hardly support two, especially if one is
to be Of the broad guage, confessedly
greatly more expensive.
To all this Col. Jones can make no
other pertinent reply, IN letter Of two
columns, than simply that "in his opin-
ion (the opinion Of very good lawyer,
brave soldier and good citizen, bat
who has paid no attention to railroad
statistics) "the time has come for
the construction of another rail-
road right alongside of one that
has run for fourteen years without
more than half enough business to de-
Gently support it This is all the answer
to be found in Col Jones's letter. The
rest is sll personal or equally irrelevant.
What does it concern the public If one
Of the shrewdest men in the community
purchased Straight Line Stock Of me,
on his own application without solicita-
ton on my part, at So cents on the dol
lar, ct time when everybody else held
it at higher rates1 What does il matter
to the public if l have purchased, with
in the past seven years, between sixty
and seventy shares Of E. 4 C. Railroad
stock, land that is the utmost that have
purchased a. the books will show), at
outside current rates, and in almost, If
not evsry case, at the earnest solicits-
tion Of the holders7
Col Jones tells ycu a sharp lawyer has
sued the city for its old subscription, and
because the lawyer is sharp, be (Jonesl
is of opinion the sui. viii go against the
city. Col Jones's late partner, the la
mented Gen. Blythe, good lawyer, too,
told ne, some moaths prior 70 bis death,
that in his opinion that claim was for
ever set at rest, and am morally csr-
tain from his statements and other
knowledge, from time 10 time ac-
quired, that unless there has already been