The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-03-25
coE1END1EG FOR RAILWAY MONOPOLY.

struggle occur as that which has been car
ried on between the two railway companies,
the Erie and the New York Central; the first
represented by Mr.. Drew, the second by Mr.
Vanderbilt. Wall street has hung breathless
upon the combat, and has watched the ma
neuvers of the opposing railway chieftains
with an interest such as was scarcely excited
in the same quarter by the operations of Lee
and Grant, or Sherman and Johnston, at the
most critical conjunctures of the late war.
Nor has the storm of battle been confined to
the financial domain. The Judiciary became
involved in the Struggle; and not as arbiters,
tat rather as partisans. That most trenchant
weapon in the judicial arsenal, the writ OF
Injunction, was welded by court against
court in behalf of the desperate contestants.
This complication Of the Judiciary with the
affair came about in this wise Vanderbilt,
| finding it not easy to crush the enemy to
death, was proceeding to devour him alive,
by buying up wholesale all the Erie stock in
the market, when Drew suddenly deployed
an immense reserve of shares, before which
his antagonist was compelled to retreat, des
pairing of victory by the process of degluti-
ton. 1t was as though large snake had un-
dertaken to swallow what seemed to be a
smaller snake, and the latter reptile had de-
feated the effort by developing an unlimited
power of elongation. In short, even VAN
derbilts plethoric purse was threatened
with collapse by the imitation of the Erie
stock.
The case was urgent, not to say desperate.
One of the New York courts was resorted to
for the means of pricking the bladder of the
formidable imitation. A writ enjoining Drew
from the issue Of reserve of shares was the
result. Hereupon, the representative of the
Erie, as fruitful in resources as unterrlfed in
spirit, applied to another court for writ to
restrain both Vanderbilt and the Judicial Off
Ger who issued the injunction in his behalf,
from the execution of their joint scheme of
injustice and iIIegality And, as if to fur
nish signal proof that the New York judi
ciary are not one-sided, the prayer was
granted the judge appealed to by Drew
seeming to argue that what was sauce for the
Central goose was sauce for the Erie gander
But, be this as it may, it must certainly strike
disinterested observer that, if one of these
writs was justified by the facts of the case,
the other was not justified by the facts of the
case. Either the Judicial order in favor of
the Central was an outrage upon private
right, or the judicial order in behalf of the
Erie was scandalous aggression upon a CO
ordinate tribunal In the opposite language
No. IL Of e
sible, as the matter now stands, to be sure
that either of these judges has acted with
purity, it is certain that one of them has not
so acted. 1.-THE bench has been degraded;
its highest powers prostituted to selfish ends
A private purse has dictated Judicial pro-
cess, and private passions and interests have
spoken in the great name of justice"
The latest phase of the contest is extra
judicial. Drew and the Erie directory, it ap-
pears, losing confidence in Judicial expedients,
abruptly changed their base by crossing at
midnight to the New Jersey side of the Hud-
son and certifying themselves in a hotel In
this stronghold, proyisioned for long siege,
they had, at last accounts, with rifles, revolt
vers and trained artillery, successfully defed
an expedition of dark and sanguinary rufians
sent by Vanderbilt to capture or dispense
them. This stage of the controversy will re-
call to many the actual war which Wander
bits fiibusteripg adherents sometimes
waged with those of rival steamship compa-
MES in Central America for the possession of
the Nicaraguan route to California. If Drew
thinks to finally beat him by superior muscle,
audacity, or skill in a contest of like charac-
ter, he is likely to rue so rash an estimate of
the ability of so old and SO fortunate an adept
in this kind of warfare. 1t may be doubted,
however, whether political misrule and gene
raj Generalization have so far assimilated the
scene of this railway contest to the condition
of Nicaragua, in the period referred to, as to
admit of the fight being fought out in ac-
cordance with filibustering tactics.
In the meanwhile the struggle between the
two railway chieftains has wider signif-
canoe than that which concerns the interest of
the bulls or the bears of Wall street in the
stock of one or the other company. Van
derbilt, representing the New York Central, a
narrow gauge road connecting through Chi
cago with marrow gauges extending thence
westward, became alarmed, it would seem, at
the forwardness of project to obtain for the
Erie Central broad gauge like connection
that would not only secure it the bulk of
Western freights, but establish its claims as
the Eastern trunk of the great interoceanic
railway line. In order to get rid of this
rivalry, he attempted to purchase a sufficient
amount of the Erie stock to give him control
in both roads. The Erie directory defeated
his purpose, for the time being at least by the
expedient Of initiation, as we have seen. But
it is too early to predict the fnalissue Each
party is aiming at monopoly of Western
railway freights and of interoceanic transport
alton. Should the New York Central succeed,
its narrow gauge would fix a much lower
maximum upon Western tonnage to New
York than would be fixed by the broad gauge
of the Erie. But, whichever may succeed,
one Of the tendencies of the monopoly will be
to divert much of the produce and grain trade
that formerly went overland to the Atlantic,
dfxv,, the hIiecieeinr,i river with a oorf;nuo,,e