Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-03-01
To the Honorable, the Joint Committee of

/
holder, Director and Counsel of the Port
land and Oxford Central Railroad Corpor-
! alton, by reason of my inability to address
you IN person, ask the privilege of'being
heard, briefly. by you, in writing, adverse
ly to the petitioners for the incorporation
of Railroad Company to construct rail-
road from Lewiston to Rumford Falls
For one quarter of century past-that
is from period anterior to the date of the
original charter of the Buckfeld Branch
Railroad in lS47, the people living along
the route from Mechanic Falls to the An
droscoggin River have been struggling to
secure the construction of IA Railroad to
accommodate the industry of that region,
and against manifold. and almost innum-
erable opposing difficulties. But they
have never despaired, nor ever ceased
their efforts in the enterprise
The Legislature of the State has hither-
to encouraged this struggle, not. only in
its incipiency, but during all these years
of protracted hope and effort, by conform
ing its legislation TO the necessities of
these people. But, not until the COM
mencement Of the current year, have they
succeeded in waking up the solitudes of
hills and valleys to be traversed, by The
sound of the locomotive whistle, and the
rumbling responses of the traffic train OF
cars. Until 1t became an established fact
the pecuniary weakness OF the population
interested and the limited productiyeness
of the region to be thus accommodated,
rendered the enterprise dubious one; and
!, even yet the problem remains to be solved
whether it will be in any degree compen-
satory to the capital invested in it, pro-
yided it shall escape the threatened inva-
sion of its promised business in which
! the Legislature is now invoked to join.
! Certain it must be to every intelligent and
thinking mind, that the valley of the An
droscoggin, north and west of the existing
line of the Androscoggin Railroad, cannot
support tico distinct Railroads, although
extending to two distinct markets. And
if there can be any Railroad State policy
invested with suicidal attributes, it will be
found in legislation which so encourages
u multiplicity of roads. that each is made
to drag on an Impoverished existence, and
rendered too enfeebled to meet the public
wants or to compensate the enterprise and
capital improyidently expended in them.
The Portland ard Oxford Railroad,
which became the legal assignee of the
former Buckiield Branch Road is now con-
structed to Canton village, from its june
ton mt Mechanic Falls, with the Grand
Trunk Railway.
The cost of the entire structure, of about
twenty-nine miles. has exceeded the sum
of $500, GEO and rests upon a first mort
gage bonded debt, of principal and inter-
est at this time, of about $500, 900, and a
class of preferred stock, held by towns
and private citizens, and for purposes of
additional equipment of the road of $780,
600; and non-preterred stock of 100000.
The estimated cost of the proposed road
from Lewiston to Rumford Falls, aohaterer
1t may be before your committee, if added
to the above cost already incurred, will
make an aggregate of expenditure, which
no man of practical common sense will
dafe predict capable of returning to the
owners two per cent. per annun,, from all
the business traffic which the regions of
the two roads can possibly furnish, during
the next half century.
With a fact, and result so patent to
the understanding of every member of the
Legislature, as well as as to every thought
full citizen, can it be wise, or even .iuSt
Tor the Legislature to ccncede grant so
full of destruction to private interests, and
especially TO 100000 of capital already
invested, and already accomplishing all
the same ends aohich q duplicate of roads
can seek TO accomplish for The ralley of The
Androscoggin Rirer, namely, direct rail-
road connection with the metropolitan
market of the State?
Nine-tenths of the expense of grading
for an extension of the Portland and Ok
ford Central from Canton village to the
Androscoggin River, on the direct route
to Rumford Falls, has already been incur
red; and an ultimate extension of the
road to those Falls has been notorious
ly contemplated for years, waiting the
.,.I ~, tOI g
the road to Canton village. And it is to
this same point the new charter asks for
new and competing road to be granted.
Could greater blunder be incurred for
weakening, instead of adding to the
wealth of that region, provided an ini-
providence equal to the required expendi-
ture- could be excited among capitalists
and spectators for the purposep
One of the cardinal attributes of legis-
lative power, surrendered by the people
to their Representatives and to the Execu-
tive conioined, is to guard both the gener-
al welfare and the interests and property
of private citizens against improvident
and visionary scenes, inaugurated by
over-sanguine theorists, under the varied
DISCUSSES of public Improvements and
speculative enterprises.
The hard-fought conflict of mental forces,
which has but recently been Witnessed IN the
councils of your legislative body, over pro-
posed acknowledgements of any given number
of citizens to locate and construct line of
railroad wherever they might elect so to do,
upon certain conditions precedent, brought
into instructive display this great and neces-
sary sanitary attribute of the legislature, in
the exercise of wise guardianship over pub
lie and private interests. 4
And the irresistible reasonableness of one
limitation upon such wild acknowledgements
of speculative capital, which, as am inform
ed, the discussion alluded to developed. viz:
| That no such railroad should be located with
in the limit of ten miles of any pre-existing
road, furnishes the strongest legislative
preston that could be enuneiated, against
the entire scheme that is involved in the petit
tions for the new road to Rumtord.
Shall the Portland and Oxford Central Rail-
road be made an exception to that legislative