Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-07-04
THE PACTFTCRAHROAD PROS
DITIfHO

While the people OF Memphis are
iadulging in the utmost Indifference
as to any of the proposed Pacific Rail-
roads, the people of Texas
and other States are alive to
their importance and are making
energetic efforts to push not alone the
lEl PasO, but the Southern route. We
learn from the Shreveport papers that
Z" Mr.. w. A. HAUsEa, President Of
the Southern Pacific Railroad, and
Mr.. VOLNEY HALL, Vice-President
arrived in that city by the steamer
Bart Able, on Sunday last. They are
confident their road will steadily pro-
gress westward, and have returned
rom Kentucky clothed with full
powers to press forward the work
as rapidly as prosible." Unless some
steps are taken by our people, il i%s.clear
to us that Memphis Is likely to be left
out of any calculations for the COM
pletion of the routes named, and that
New Orleans and Vicksburg on the
one hand, and Cincinnati, Louisville
and st. Louis on the other, will have
it all their OWE way. The former
cities, interested in the Southern route,
are untiring in their efforts for its con-
structiOn; a labor in which they are
aided by Louisville, where much if
not a controlling amount of its stock
is held. st. Louis, interested imme-
diately in the plans proposed by the
Conventions of Memphis and New
Orleans, is pushing forward her con-
nections, all three of which bid fair to
| be completed before the through route
to the Brazos is finished and in rum
ming order. Cincinnati, too, is look
ing to her interests by the Cairo and
Fulton route. Memphis only is at Il
stand still. Except the little that is
being done on the Little Rock Road,
there is, positively, no effort being
made that can be construed into aid
to the through Pacific Railroad, that all
admit is necessary to our continued
existence as a city. We are being
rapidly distanced in this and many
other things, because our people feed
upon the vanity that Il position
gives us a commanding pre-emi-
nence, and Will of itself force for Us
what other people have to work hard
for. They are likely shortly to be
awakened from this pleasant dream,
and very abruptly. Railroads, which
accomplish everything nowadays for
communities, that break so ruth
lessly all the best made calculations,
are building up cities where there is
no Mississippi, and investing, with a
grand future, points on the "plains"
that but a few months gone were the
haunts of the buffalo and the red man.
The same results win follow in Arkan-
sas and Texas, and to our benefit if
| we but make the effort. IF not, then
for the benefit of the cities we have
named, increasing the chances against
us, and adding almost insurmountable
obstacles to those we already have to
encounter. We must be up and do
ing. While we have a favorable pO-
sitiOn our trade is almost exclusively
the work of railroads, to be increased
by other railroads, like that to Selma
and that to Cairo, and the one that
overshadows all, as it will benefit all
that to the Pacific Ocean. We can
never hope for the destiny 50 elo-
quently predicted for US, that we are
to rival the Memphis Of the Nile, qns
til we have a through railroad TO the
Pacific. Shall we have it?