New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-30
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Those anxious prophets who see despair IN
every variation of the gold market and feel
that we are all going TO the bad, will find
strange problem in the financial columns of
THE TRIBUNE. Calculating the aggregate of
money asked for good railroad bonds and
mortgages, we estimate that the bankers and
brokers of Wall-st are now asking the cOun'
try TO advance them forty millions of dollars
to build railways and improve the country
Forty millions of dollars is goodly sum of
money. 1t is more than it took to run the
Government forty years ago. The war has
familiarzed us with millions and billions to
such a degree that our mathematical concep
tions are obtuse and we do not thoroughly COM
prehend the vastness of this demand. There
are good many second-rate monarchies that
would be glad to be worth forty millions OF
dollars. The Sultan of Turkey would probably
sell his harem and mosques, and retire for the
remainder of his days into muezzin's tower
to chant praises to Mohammed for half the
sum. And yet, if we lend this forty millions,
Wall-st. will probably ask forty times as much
next year.
What do these gentlemen want with all
this money! Mr.. Opdyke requests a
in a railway directly through the heart
of New-York. A better road was never
planned-and, as a feeder to New-York,
every bond is good. Mr. Vermilye would like
us to help him with his NewYOrk Southern
Central. We don't know much about this (;
but are disposed to believe in any bond that
Mr. Vermilye recommends. New-York cannot
have too many railroads and, after we are
through with New-York, we naturally turn to
the South. Mr.. Clews has a road in Alabama,
running from Selma, which should be built
In Georgia, we havelthe.MacOn and Brunswick
as good as any road in the South. and dcs-
tined to aid largely in developing Georgia.
We should put our bottom dollar into it or
into the Atlantic and Gulf, which came along
the other day with balance Of earnings show
ing an increase in one year of n per cent.
We do MT remember any fact since the war
that pleased Us more. When tho Southern
Railways increase n per cent. in business, it
means that we are coming back to the good
old days of prosperity and peace.
After the South, we see the West with out
stretched hands. Twenty railways, running
hither aud thither, all wanting to run little
faster-if they can have assistance Well,
gentlemen, we wish you all success and, if we
had forty millions OF dollars over and above
what we find necessary for our own comfort,
you should have all you ask. Money put into
railways in States like Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,
and Iowa, is like the mustard-seed whose fruit
was hundred-fod. And even as the birds of
Heaven nestled in its branches, so do towns and
cities cluster along these great highways, and
grow prosperous from their traffic. Long
reaches of prairie and hill, which have lain
dormant for centuries, abandoned to the In
dian and the wolf, suddenly become instinct
with life and grow into States. Who can
estimate the good that has been done to Illinois
City by the Chicago and Alton, to Iowa by
the Dubuque and Sioux City, to Missouri by
the Missouri Pacific To-day the surveyor trails
along with his glass and measuring chain !;
tomorrow company Of brawny Cells OF