The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1872-01-27
From the Cincinnati Commercial.
Congress and Corporation Projects.

From the Cincinnati Commercial
Congress and Corporation Projects.
judging from the quantity of bills before
Doth Houses OF Congress, proposing to in
vest individuals with corporate privileges,
one would conclude that our American
Congress Is going into the gift enterprise
business on grand and paying scale. We
counted up lately hundred and fifty such
bills, without beginning to get to the bot
tom of the pile. They undertake to create
corporations for all sorts Of speculative
purposes for building iron steamships, for
improving rivers, for constructing railways.
for opening lines of telegraph, for digging
canals, for constructing break waters, for
rrigatlng lands, for building levees, for
navigating the ocean, and for promoting
immigration. If there are any half dozen
gentlemen any where in the United States
who are confident of their ability to make
a pile Of money by issuing bonds or Great
ing stock for any purpose ostensibly public
In its character, they straightway 90 to
Congress to create them into a corporation.
Look at the character Of some Of these
projects for promoting private interests at
public expense. First, we have "a bill to
and In the construction of twenty or more
hrst class iron steamships" &C., creating
fifteen gentlemen Of New York body cor
porate and polite, by the name of the
American Mail and Ocean Transportation
Company" These fifteen gentlemen and
their assigns are empowered to issue corpo-
ration stock to the amount Of ten millions
Of dollars, and bonds to the amount Of ten
IN Nv .
twenty steamships Of iron, Of the first class,
and to run them three times week to for
eign ports, carrying the United States mails
free of charge. In consideration Of this
service the Government is to pay the inter
est on these $40, ,O0O, 600 of bonds for thirty
years, at six per cent, in gold. At the
end of the thirty years the principal Of the
bonds is to be redeemed by the company
The United States will thus have to pay
out and the company to pocket one million
two hundred Thousand dollars per year for
thirty years, or precisely thirty-six millions
OF dollars, as interest on twenty millions.
The Government is to be secured by first
mortgage on the twenty steamships. Per
contra, the ships of the company are for
the term of thirty years to bc exempt from
all Government dues and port charges, and
also to purchase coal or other supplies in
bonds, freeof duty, for use on board its ships.
This is bare outline Of grand scheme
for making money plenty in the pockets of
its promoters, under the guise of carrying
the United States mails in American bot
toms. Besides the valuable franchises
granted, and the indefinitely profitable
privilege of importing foreign commodities
free of duty, this corporation is to draw a
million and a quarter every year from the
Treasury, in gold. All that it pays for this
is the carriage Of the ocean mail Of the
United States, which, in the palmiest days
of the Collins subsidized lines did not
amount to quite eight hundred thousand
dollars year. And yet these lines were
stopped by Congress because Of the enor-
nifty Of the loss they imposed upon the
Treasury.
Then come sixteen other enterprising gen
tlemen, and ask to be Incorporated as the
American Atlantic Telegraph Cable Com
pany, and the American Pacific Telegraph
Cable Company, with capital stocks Of
twenty millions, and bonds to the amount
Of ten millions in addition. They want
authority to lay two cables, one from the
and Japan, the other from the Atlantic
coast to Europe. This double -barreled cor
poration has the modesty to ask the Gov
ernment Of the United States to guarantee
their bonds, and to pay the interest on them
for thirty years, in gold. Thirty years in
terest ON $40, ,OOO, 900 at 5 per cent is $15,-
600, 600; which the United States is to pay,
whatever becomes of the corporation or its
stock, and, besides this, is to bind itself by
contract to do it's entire official telegraphic
business with foreign Governments, or its
own officers and agents abroad, through the
cable lines of these two companies. The
rates of charges for this service are to be the
same as to the public, and are not to ex-
ceed five dollars for q message of ten words
for the Atlantic line, and fifteen dollars on
the Pacific line.
Next we have the Mediterranean and
Oriental Steam Navigation Company Of New
York, a corporation that asks Congress to
indorse their bonds for thirteen millions Of
dollars, and to pay the interest on them for
twenty years, at SIX per cent. or seven hun
dred and eighty thousand dollars a year
As return, this magnificent private cor
poration agrees to carry the mails Of the
United States from New York and Norfolk
to Genoa, on the Mediterranean Sea, with
contingent contract to carry them thr ,ugh
the Suez Canal to the East Indies, when
ever the company, aided by Congress, shall
have built steamships enough for that ser
vice.
We have also our old acquaintance, the
"Sutro Tunnel Company, which private
corporation, grown little more modest
than before, proposes to borrow Of the
United States only three millions Of dollars
in money, not bonds, to pay for excavating
the said tunnel through certain silver mines
in the State of Nevada. To secure the
Government in this little operation, the
Sutro Tunnel corporation generously pro-
poses to execute TO the United States first
mortgage on that hypothetical hole in the
ground known as the Sutro Tunnel, should
it ever be excavated. 1t further promises
to redeem the mortgage (which might, per
haps, not be the most available species Of
assets, devoting twenty-five per cent. of
the net revenues Of the Tunnel to the pur
pose of sinking fund.
Now if the government Of the United
States exists for the purpose Of aiding spec
ulators to float their schemes to a successful
market, then Congress may be justified in
lending the national credit to some Of them.
As we have little or no national debt at
present, and no taxation to speak of (only
from forty to fifty per cent on what we eat,
drink, wear and use, perhaps we had bet
ter issue few more bonds, under plea of
the public welfare, or any other ingenious