The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-01
aRIRTT or THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE MONOPOLY CENTRE.


On its ideal hills rests the empire of protec-
tion. There lives projections pope, whose
infallibility is not questioned, although his
temporalities, mainly consisting of coal-mines
in Schuylkill, are obviously in danger. There
too, is the great railway corporation whose
grasp, if life and strength survive, seems des-
tined to clutch the throat of the nation, and
whose ruin, if ruin it be, will create "a vortex
whose destructive agitation will reach far
away. Nominally Pennsylvania corpora
tion-for, unlike our Erie and its other broad
gauge connections, it owes no allegiance be-
yond the limits of q single State-lt is
really congeries of corporations, extending
from the Delaware far westward of the Mis-
sissippi, and administered by a purely local
directory. But this is not all. If its
feelers, its long and extending line of leased
and subsidized corporations, and possibly
legislatures, were directed only westward,
there would be some semblance of policy and
economy in what it is doing and what it was
created to do--to empty Western produce
into the lap of Philadelphia. But so paltry
an end does not content the restless adven-
turers who control this enterprise. They dis
claim the Union Pacific, the memory of
Oakes Ames being too fresh; but they have
finger in one line of steamships to Japan and
guarantee the bonds of another to Liverpool.
And they are actually invading the
South! What possible legitimate OBJ
ject can company, incorporated to
build road from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg and nothing else, have in buying
up or building railroad from Aqua creek to
Richmond? This is restless exorbitance with
a vengeance; and if we were to say or hint
that it and the feverish irritability which is
shown at any attempt at diet or restraint were
sure signs of an approaching catastrophe, we
should not be far wrong. 1t won't do to say
that we, as New Workers, have no interest in
this. Ours is the interest to see the Penn
sylvania Railroad, giving us the shortest line
to the West, a reasonable success. If it
chooses to waste its surplus means or borrow
more money in buying up New Jersey and
making Philadelphia a way station, the
greater is our interest. But above all has
this community an interest in averting a
financial catastrophe whose fearful eddies will
know no narrow limit. That such q catas-
trophe will come unless the progress of this
sort of adventure be checked we firmly be-
lieve. Let us look for q moment at this di-
vergence into Virginia, and further South,
for it is to reach Georgia. From Aqua creek
to Richmond is well-stocked, well-built road,
administered under a local charter To seduce
this mature maiden was the first aim of the
Philadelphia Lotharios They offered to
buy, and paw in bonds of their own, or in
those of others guaranteed by them. There
was no reluctance to sell, but an old-fash-
ioned, dogged, stupid sort of repugnance to
take doubtful securities in payment. Such,
on full examination, they thought the Penn
sylvania bonds, or guarantee even, and the
scheme failed. Fot to be foiled, "Briareus"
Gas the Press felicitously calls the company
put one of its idle hands on an old charter
from Alexandria to Richmond, and with the
other ninety nine, or as many as could be
spared from holding the Legislatures of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia,
seized reconstructed Virginia at her capital.
She struggled, as Georgia had done before,
but in vain; and. as we are now advised, all
the needed legislation in that quarter has
been secured.
If uneasy lies the head which wears crown,
manifestly disturbed and restless is the slum-
ber of the corporation whose pillow is stuffed
with many charters and through whose cur
tains glare the glances of many creditors
Such is specially the case with this one, whose
bed its late annual report describes as ell
thornless roses At the annual meeting in
Philadelphia the patient showed feverish irri-
tation. A gentleman of the highest social
standing, a former director, a stookholder-
if not in his own right, as trustee for others
offered resolution of common inquiry. All he
asked was "a clear and comprehensive bal
ance sheet of the companys liabilities aud
assets" Great was the wrath thereat. The
directors felt themselves insulted by this
mean, business-hke suggestion. 1t was ask.
ing Lord Avondale for his marriage certif-
cate, or Daniel Mcfarland cross examining
Mr.. Beecher; and the result was that, while
the directory was dumbfounded by the sacri-
lege, their solicitor, the paid advocrte of the
corporation, was put forward to snub and
insult the recalcitrant stockholder; and he
did it thoroughly, saying that sit Was a sim
pie impertinence, and the directors aud
their cldqueuTS cheered. Such things don't
happen even in this demoralized metropolis.
;. But what does all this prove? Strength,
stability, the consciousness of unimpaired
resources? Far, very far, from it. We have
more than once recalled, in warning, the
memory of the days of triumph and of woe
which we read of when another Pennsylvania
corporation-a pigmy alonside of this-domi-
neered in its day of apparent strength, and
died in agony. Mr. Hume Jared no worse
in this year of grace than did government
director or a Jackson Democrat who dared
to ask question in Philadelphia thirty years
ago. There is the same hollow laudation,
with one chosen specimen of which our words
of warning cease:-
Here we have says the Prsss) corporation,
braIenshke, holding within aus iron hands the
commerce OF continent, and bringing TO our very
doors the trade OF the Orient. To-day there are
owned and operated by the company thirty-slx hun
which number will be shortly increased by the extep-
sion OF the road TO the Gulf OF Mexico on the south
and the Pacific Ocean on the West"
Nothing is wanting but service of plate
81 have my suspicious, says great searcher
into iniirmity, "of testimonials In NV ex-
perience of life always feel shy about them,
and when q party gets one, somehow. look
out to hear OF a smash up next month. A5stt
omen! say again.
FARM-WORK FOR WOMEN.