The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-15
NEW ORLEANS AND RAILROADS


career of prosperity, unless she shall hold at
the same time the best relation which is at
tainable with the railroad system OF this con-
tinent Without the latter condition, as all
our wide-awake citizens now clearly perceive,
her position is as unstable as water and as
treacherous as quicksand. She can never rise
to her proper stature, she can never touch the
summit of the great argument OF her destiny,
until, like the angel of the Apocalypse, she has
one foot firmly planted upon the land, and
the other in the sea. Then, indeed, VIII
dawn the true era of her commercial great
ness-the reality of prosperous estate as
steadsast as the everlasting hills, as expansive
as the ocean, as liberal as the air.
Nothing is more adapted to arouse our
people from comparative Inertia on the sub
iect of railroad interests, the railroad possibili
ties and, first of all, therailroad perils of the
city, and to stimulate them to instant, vigor-
GUS, harmonious and effective action in this
regard, than the energetic manner in which
the project of the international Pacific Rail
road" is sustained and promoted by the vari-
GUS communities which expect to be benefited
by its completion or in its progress. The
proposed route Of this railroad is from Cairo
to Little Rock from Little Rock to Jeffer-
son, Texas and from jefferson, intersecting
the westward extension of the Houston
railroad, to the Rio Grande, opposite Camar-
90, Mexico At the last named point it is con-
templated to connect it with a railroad run
ming obliquely across Mexico and terminating
on the Pacific coast at San Bias. By this
route the distance to Little Rock is 237 miles;
to the Texas line, 1917 miles to the Rio
Grande, 972 miles; to San Bias, 1872 miles.
The distance from Cairo to New York being
1000 miles, the completion of the Interna-
tional Pacific Railroad would give an inter-
oceanic line of 2572 miles in length. Thus it
offers an immense advantage, in point of dis
lance alone, over the Union Pacific Railroad.
Unlike the latter large portion of which
traverses region almost as sterile as Sahara,
it passes through no barren territory. On
the contrary, crossing the valleys of the
White, the Arkansas, the Ouachita, the Red
River, the Sabine, the Trinity, the Brazos, the
Colorado and other rivers, it proposes to
tap some of the best lands for grain,
cotton and sugar on the continent; besides
penetrating the richest natural pasture in the
world, where five million of beef cattle and
| innumerable horses, sheep and goats are
raised almost without cost. Moreover, the
CONFORMATION of the ground along this route is
| immensely more favorable to railroad con-
struction than it is along the route of the
| Union Pacific
There is bill now before Congress for
granting government aid to the international
| Pacific Railroad at the rate of $4,000 per
mile of completed work from Cairo to Little
Rock, and SIG, 900 per mile from Little Rock
to the Rio Grande, which would make total
of about S14, 600, 900, less than one-fourth of
the sum conceded to the Union Pacific. There
is little doubt that the subvention asked from
Congress will be voted. In that event, eigh-
teen months will not elapse before the West
ern cities will be in railway connection with
the heart of Texas, by chain of roads nearly
parallel with the Mississippi river and the
Gulf coast Then Galveston, Houston, La
vaca, Henderson, in Texas, and even shreve-
port, in Louisiana, will be nearer in time to
st. Louis than they are to New Orleans.
This prospect needs no touch of fancy to
make it startling. New Orleans must wake
up at once to the tremendous peril of this
flank movement which threatens to conquer
the richest of her commercial territory. If
her song is still to be, as of old, ga little
more sleep, little more slumber little
more folding of the hands in sleep" her wax
ing, when it does come, will be too late for
she will be walked by the crash of ruin, and
her dream of reaping the wealth of the Texas
trade will vanish as completely as that of Al
naschar when the shattering of his basket of
crockery reused him from visions of royal po-
tency and luxury to the squalid realities of his
beggarly condition.
1t has been heretofore remarked in these
columns that navigation was yet but in its
infancy. But it does not follow that improve
ments in navigation are to advance at a
swifter rate than those in the art of railway
transportation. Indeed, the latter have got SO
far the start that it is hardly a rash conjec.
ture to suppose that within the next fifty
years interior navigation for travelling and
| COuutfCldl pOoCo WILL bO dhhhOoS % OOoO-
lete as the OK wagon and the stage coach are
at this moment. If there is any reasonable
ground for this anticipation, then it plainly
devolves on every live interest in New Orleans
to unite Immediately upon such measures
as will give her abundant railway commune
cation with the heart of Texas, and in all
other directions where available resources of
trade exist. Depend upon it, way will not
be hard to find, -iii--;----~-ss
thoroughly enlisted in the work. There is
only trifing hiatus to supply between New
Orleans and the Texas boundary, in order to
open the richest portions of that State to our
commerce. That done, there would be no.
thing to fear from the invasion of the Inter
national Pacific Railroad. 1t would not divert
more than it would contribute. New Orleans,
should the same railroad be pushed across
the Rio Grande and through Mexico, as con-
templated, would become the great South
western terminus of the shortest interoceanic
railroad traversing the United States. The