The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-11
THE NEW RAILROAD WAR

The railroad war in New York grows more
and more exciting. The controversy of stock
brokers and railroad officials, succeeded by a
series of conflicting judicial opinions and
ORDERS has led to forcible struggle, and
conflicting railroad armies have been organized
to decide the quarrel with bowie-knives and
revolvers.
Various causes have combined to lend a
deep interest to this struggle The matter at
issue is the control of the Albany and Susque-
hanna Railroad. 1t was built mainly by the
private and municipal subscriptions of inhabi-
tants along the line for the promotion of local
interests, and especially for the purpose of
obtaining cheap coal from the Lackawanna
region of Pennsylvania, by a connection with
the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad, the
supplies of the region having heretofore
been furnished exclusively by the Delaware
and Hudson Canal Company. After much
money had been expended for the purpose
indicated, and after the objects in view were
about to be attained, the notorious railway
cormorant, Fisk, Jr., who is constantly
striving to seize more railway property than
he can properly manage, organized, in con-
nection with his friends, scheme for obtain
ing the control of the Albany and Susque-
hanna Railroad, partly to make it dependent
branch of the Erie Railway, but more especi-
ally, as the people of Albany allege, to prevent
the road from rendering any assistance to the
effort to break up the monopoly of the coal
markets of the region traversed which has here
tofore been possessed by the Delaware and
jectors of the railway in dispute have deter
mined to offer every available species of re-
sistance to the effort to diminish the useful
ness Of their property, and the deep feeling
aroused along the line fully accounts for the
courageous attitude they have assumed.
Independent of the issues immediately in
volved, the mere fact that the notorious Fisk
is once more in the field, fighting for the
establishment of his fatal management over
another ill-starred railway, is of itself suffi
cient to arrest public attention. No new evil
dence is needed that his domination over anv
important thoroughfare is little less than
public calamity He should be satisfied with
the existing record of fearful disasters on the
line of the Erie Road, with his annihilation
of opera boutfe and the failure of his opera
house speculation, without seeking to DESTROY
the usefulness of another railway or to ex-
tend his reckless and ruinous sway. Stability
of character, steadiness of purpose, admins
trative capacity, sterling integrity, and un-
ceasing carefulness, are nowhere so necessary
as IN railway management; and it is one of
the greatest marvels of modern times that. by
any accident or neglect, a man of Fisk's
calibre and characteristics should have
been permitted to exercise a
commanding influence in railway
matters. The bitterness of the New York
quarrel is naturally intensified by the prevail
ing dread of the dominance of one who acts in
many things more like a mailman than cool
headed and conscientious being, and who
treats the great avenues on which the safety
OF thousands of lives is daily risked as the
mere sport of the stock market.