The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-02-07
State Improvement-Past and Present

else the industry and sagacity OF the country
Indeed they got the start Of the James River
canal Several were built before that canal
had gone up TO Lynchburg. general law OF
the State then provided that the State would
subscribe two-fifths to all public works in
which private stockholders should have taken
three fifths. In course Of time, by the force
of clamor and perseverance, the State was
driven TO subscribe three-fifths to the stock
holders two flfths.
To maintain the system Of an independent
State commerce-originated by the greatest
men of yirginia--in the face OF the heavy
pressure upon the Treasury for aid to the yari-
Gus new projects born at that day, it became
necessary that there should be formed strong
party in the Legislature. How was that TO
be formedg The great body of the Represen-
tatives of the tide-water country, where i'm
provements were not wanted, opposed all APP
preparations to public works and they, with
the economists from the corners OF the State
which had no hope of a railroad, were in such
force that the improvement men had to drum
up recruits, and to pay a bounty for them.
This was the beginning of the log rolling j"
system. Votes were literally bought by a
pledge of aid for such projects as the voters
were interested in. So that in time the State
had TO pay to local improvements as many
millions as she appropriated to her main lines,
in order to get appropriations to these. AS the
debt rose and the pressure increased, the votes,
of course, became more and more valuable-a
fact we'll known to those who held them, who
let no occasion pass to get their full worth!
And so it was that the State was rapidly
involved in debt, while the integrity of the
original system annually lost strength and
vigor by reason of the variety of new lines
brought into the arena of log rolling, and
fastened upon the treasury like freshly. arrived
and hungry lampreys, to suck up the vital
juices of the State. To such pass did this
system come, that at one time number of pro-
iects were included In the same BILL appropri-
ating many millions. The Covington and Ohio
railroad was the mother of the brood, which
stuckato her and drew subsistence from her as
though she Were, indeed, a nursing mother.
This grouping of them in one act grew out OF
the jealousy that existed and the apprehension
of treachery; so demoralizing had been the
effects of the system. Finally the children
grew too powerful for the mother, and the
Covington and Ohio line had absolutely to sub
NIT to the doled- out pittance that barely kept
II alive while they riled the Treasury.
The Convention of 1850 to amend the Consti-
tuition endeayored to check wasteful expendi-
ture in two ways. They inserted clause in
that instrument declaring that /" no law shall
"embrace more than one object, which shall
be expressed in it's title - and further, that
"a majority of all the members elected to
leach house shall be necessary to give the
force of law to any appropriation of money
to any purpose. The first clause was TO pre-
vent the incorporation of two or more appro-
priations in the same law; and the second to
increase the difficulty of voting away money.
1t had been The habit to make appropria-
tions even by ryder to bill-an expedi-
ent much dreaded by the friends Of a bill some
times, and at others the only way to secure its
massage But if this kind of strategy was
ended by one clause, the other, requiring the
ma iority of all the voters in the House to
make an appropriation, only increased the
evil it sought to correct. 1t increased the cdtue
Of rotes but since purchasers had not TO pay
for them out Of their own pockets, but out OF
the State Treasury, they did not stick at the
price 1t widened the range Of appropria-
ton, and invited a large number Of passengers
into the great Noah's Ark Of Internal
Improvement. Infinitely less Roadway was
made on the main lines, and an increased num-
Der of small works were honored with COM
Portable passage. So consequential did the
advocate of the mud pike of five miles
become, that he scorned and repudiated a
passage in the steerage. Like parasites of
the monsters of the deep, the little patrons of
little schemes sported briskly Baround the
great leviathans of the canal and the Coving-
ton and Ohio railroad. Thus, while the chief
works moved with gradually diminishing
10 SDft ho OF
INFLATED that wreck and ruin stared her in
the face.
No State could stand up under such sys-
tem-one that was alike ruinous and disgrace
full This deplorable condition of public
affairs might have been avoided had the repre-
sentatives Of the eastern part Of the State,
who needed no improvements, rallied TO the
support Of the real Statesmen Of Virginia, and
rescued the cause from the log rolling mael.
strom. They might have thus saved the
means Of the State for the completion Of the
main lines-for the establishment of State
commerce, and great commercial cities which
would have given her both wealth and power
almost without limit. This bright dream of
the Industrious virginians is now in danger Of
never beine realized. Had the representatives
orthe east been more liberal and more wise,
Shcy Ahsehs hosC oSOiuc0 VIC puoo W ~lASh w
have come.
The war found Virginia heavily in debt, and
II has left her enfeebled and exhausted. At
such time come the appeals for new lines Of
railway-ail 10 be made without the aid Of that
treasury which railroads have emptied. The
result 10 already announced by the action OF
the Legislature. They will probably all be
granted, and In q few years nearly Ill the
towns which have engaged In tbs unfortunate
rivalry that has impoverished the State and
scattered Ats commerce, will realize the fate
which they have, by short-sighted ambition,
brought upon themselves.
Railroads are the great centralizers Of power
and commerce. They do AS much for DO.
ltical as they do for commercial power
They dwarf the towns Of the interior, destroy
their independence, social and commercial, and
doom them TO stand stiil and lament In after
times the days when they had Q trade. The
railroad not Only does this, but IL puts up the
prices Of living wherever IL pisrees the int.