The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-12-09
Railroads to the Pacifc-A Southern
- Line Demanded.

= Line Demanded.
Ever since during the past summer wri-
terfor one of the leading literary periodicals
OF the country made a number Of statements
going TO prove that the Pacific railroad was
q swindlc, the public have from time to
time been favored with ouigivings by first
one person and then another which were
not at all calculated to carry with them the
belief that the road most nearly completed
is either good one, or on the most deslra-
BILE route, or likely to be worth half what u
will have cost when finished. None OF
these oufgivings, however, were, SO far as II
anpeared, tinctured with sectional feeling
none of them asserted that the road 80
nearly completed was constructed entirely
too far north, nor that miserable Jealousy
of the southern people dictated its location.
Yet, if we may rely upon the statements
Of that trustworthy Radical journal the
Cincinnati Commercial, we can hardly come
to any other conclusion. That paper rid
dies the whole scheme, and represents it to
be little better than en- avowed scheme Of
plunder-not, indeed, in these words; yet,
if it's representations be true, such is the
nature of the Union Pacific Railroad Com
pany's real design.
Let US see what the Commercial says A
Pacific railroad, to be central, would be loca-
ted in latitude Sc 30-the latitude of south
ern Virginia. But the Pacific road begins ut
Omaha, in latitude 4l.20, crosses Nebraska,
Wyoming, Dakota, and Utah north of lati
tude AZ, trends to the southwest in Nevada,
and DIVORCES from its meridian about two
hundred miles in order to reach the vicinity
OF San Francisco We quote:
For four-ffths of its entire length it is
far north of the meridian of San Francisco.
1t must be subject to violent snow-storms
for several months every year. 1t traverses
a desert across western Nebraska, across
Wyoming, across Dakota, across Utah, and
thence passes into the Great Basin, one Of
the most absolute alkaline wastes on the
globe-a plateau where all the streams sink
into the barren sands, where the wretched
Indians live on grass seed, and decent
vada, the railroad threads the Sierra range,
winding through Bonner Lake pass, where
wet, soggy snow falls nine or ten feet in a
single storm and where the writer last
August stood beside the track making snow
balls from huge banks that never wholly
melt away. All who have personally ex-
amined the route will cay that the perils Of
1ointe- trduel ovsr the Central Pacific rail-
road Of California through Bonner pass
are so palpa6ly great that no man ,oiU incur
them ooho is not foolhardy. The Nebraska
end of the road has icy terrors to contend
with that are only less repulsiye than those
pertaining to travel across the Sierra during
the average winter. The California end is
building snow-sheds and the Nebraska end
snow-walls. Neither snowshed nor snow
wall can stand before the mountain ava
lanohes that sweep down giant trees and
huge masses of stone as if they were fag
gots and pebbles"
These being facts, it is not strange that
the Commercial declares that the Congress
of the United States has spent 0,000,0 600
and given away 100000 acres of land
to build Pacific railroad that is inconve
nient for all the country south of the Lake
cities, which is indirect il reaching San
Francisco, and unquestionably unsafe for
nearly half the year.
Radical though it be in its politics, the
Commercial does not hesitate to intimate
that the southern States will be called upon
to aid in righting these wrongs. "Three
fourths of the States" are said to lie south
of the worthless road. And whatever,
quoth the Commercial, whatever may
shave been the status of the southern
Estates during the war, it will hardly be
" denied that they are in the nation now.
" The northern States that adjoin them are
"not disposed to view the South as region
permanently given over to poverty, po-
" litical intolerance, and hateful social ex-
" clusiveness. Time is mending these evils,
Sand the chain of central States are no
longer willing to be considered as bound
Z" ing the republic on the south. That,
"happily, is once more the function Of the
" Gulf of Mexico
These are cheering words and we con-
.inue our quotation:
"We have not heard that grass is grow
Ing in the streets of Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis,
New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Charles
ton, Richmond, Savannah, and Mobile, but
We are sure these cities are not content to
be sneered at by Chicago because they must
pour into that petted entrep6t in order to
journey over a Government enterprise to
reach the metropolis on the Pacific that is
in about the same latitude as Norfolk, Va.
AS well might the Government in former
days have built railroad beginning at
Buffalo to accommodate the national travel
TO Norfolk as to have planted the great
route to San Francisco in the latitude of the
lakes. The country at large would have
been as conveniently served in one instance
as it win be in the other, and q good deal
securer against the death Of passengers by
freezing or starvation.
sour first Pacific railway is mortify-
flying geographical blunder. To sanction
another still further north would be a
crime against common-sense, decent fair
ness, and human life itself. To refuse to
construct central and competing Pacific
railroad that can be run all the year round,
and along q meridian where snow seldom
falls, and never to great depth, will be to
make as damaging a sectional error as was
ever committed under the old reign of the
shareholders. What we advocate is road
to which all the States, North and South,
may equally stretch out their iron arms,