Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-04-06
I'm Re The People adv. The Corpora
tiOus.


The grave error committed by the counsel for
the city, at the last audience before the railroad
committee of the general court, upon the mu-
nicipal petition for relocation of certain rail-
way tracks, may be impossible of reparation.
AS it must be perpetrated, the pity is that it
could not have been deferred to the following
day. Such a farce might well be6t the first of
April Yet, if uncertainty of aim aud yacilla-
ton of purpose fare as usual, if the proper con-
summation OF years of toll and patient waiting
must be RENTED, for emphatic and final de-
cision, to the embittered field of municipal
politics, "leave to withdraw" from the state
house might be welcomed for its latent compen-
Stations.
For, at last, the corporations have been com
PEELED, in the sheer desperation of their strife
with the people, to disclose their hand and
develop their game. No respect attaches
to the servile objections of the dwell
ers around way-stations, ever cordially
greeted in Worcester upon errands of
pleasure or traffic, but whose dietation as to the
disposition of our territory will be treated as the
impertinent interference whichit is. Little more
consideration is due to the remonstrance of those
of our fellow-ctzens, who would hamper the
future development of our city by selfish
timidity which has acted like steady drag upon
its growth in the past; and whose active opposi.
ton should have concluded where il was fairly
and summarily tested. The whole matter was
once passed upon by the people at the polls,
when and where the decision by an immense
majority, demanded the unconditional removal
of the railroad tracks across the common, Madi-
son and Mechanic streets, and those interme
dia:e." The impudenee of hired attorneys
dares to charge whole community with reck-
lessness or ignorance of the inevitable conse-
quence of their vote. But il is not credible that
there should be such especial virtue in a retain
er, however solid, as to endow any legal dryas-
dust with peculiar or exclusive comprehen-
sion Of the immediate aims and ultimate scope
of public action. 1t is Legitimate inference that
the people intended whatever consequences
might ensue from their expressed deliberate
decision.
More than a lifetime of a generation has
elapsed since the Norwich and Worcester rail-
road corporation appeared, by its agent, as an
humble suppliant at Worcester town meeting
beseeching permission to cross the common.
The Boston and Worcester railroad company,
had, but few minutes previous, solicited aud
obtained bounty of $4,000 from individuals, to
enable it to come up to what is now the Foster
street station. The Norwich corporation was
even more INDECENT 1t possessed, by its charter
the power to build its track from Norwich to
Worcester; but, upon not single inch Of
that entire way was it authorized, las the legis.
Iature was never elected that could give such
autborityD to take land for its purposes of con
struction without compensation. Its charter
was % Worcester; and whatever rights it would
acquire, whether within or without the town
limits, II must get by purchase' when it could
-either wheedle nor steal Item. II required the
- fee of the land over which to lay its rails; but
from the town Of Worcester, it obtained only
permission to cross the common, By horsepower
and without remuneration; and although, q
year later, the use OF steam was sanctioned by
the town, II was not even pretended by this now
arrogant corporation that its own simple suffer.
ance, upon any terms, was not matter for crate
ful Acknowledgement.