The Portland daily press., 1872-02-12
MONDAY MORNING. FEB. 1s, 1879.
.sIniuring the Credit of the City"

sTniuring the Credit of the City"
The Mn;ne Farmer, and other papers quot
inc the Portland PRESS for authority, report
that the present liability of this city on account
of railroad loans is S2,063, 900, and that if the
Ogdensburg loan is made, it will be over S.,
600, 600. In fact, the entire debt of Portland
on railroad account is $1,314, 900, and this is
secured by property worth from eight to ten
millions, and by a sinking fund already
amounting to one third of the debt.-Adcer-
Siser.
Our statement as to the present liability OF
the city on account of railroads was correct.
The Advertiser feels authorized to exclude
from this account either the Portland d
Rochester bonds, or the loans made to pay
the city's subscription of STAG to the cap
ital stock of the Portland & Ogdensburg
railroad! As the taxes are annually increas-
ed over forty thousand dollars in order to
meet the interest on these Ogdensburg loans,
the taxpayers can hardly have reasonable
doubt that they constitute genuine, sub
stantial sliabity." If it is not liability
con account of railroads" the tact must be
discovered by the same method that was en-
Moved in the Advertiser office to find that
the City Council felt called upon to express
no opinion on the proposition of the Ogdens-
burg railroad" The Portland & Rochester
bonds also constitute a genuine liability.
The question of security was not taken up
in the article which the Advertiser vainly at
tempted to discredit 1t is presumed, of
course, that the city is secured against loss in
all the railroad investments it has made, but
the liability is as we have stated it. Ii any
correction is to be made it must be made by
the addition of the first mortgage of $500, 200
on the city's property in the Ogdensburg
road, which it may have to redeem in order
to prevent the entire loss of its stock. Taking
this view of the case the present liability OF
the city on account of railroads is 81, S64, 200.
If the Farmer and other papers have
quoted the PRESS as authority for the state
ment that the proposed Ogdensburg loan will
make the city's railroad liabilities over
$4,000, 900, they have made mistake, not in
the fact-for the addition of the 100000
mortgage establishes hat-but in their
authority. Our table showed that if the
loans asked by both the Ogdensburg and the
Rochester roads should be granted, the city's
liability would be over five millions, which is
an indisputable fact.
The Advertiser asks all papers that have
spoken of the alleged liability of the city to
correct statement calculated to injure the
credit of Portland. 1t will naturally occur to
most persons that the credit of the city is not
so likely to be injured by those who try in ev-
cry legitimate way to keep its expenditures
and its obligations within reasonable and safe
limits, as by those who, without any undue
scrupulousness as to means, would plunge it
into every extravagant scheme on which
leagued capitalists desire it to embark. Dan
ger is not to be apprehended from those who
tell the truth about the present perfectly safe
and constantly improving financial condition
Of the city, but from those who conceal the
present large liabilities of the city for the pur
pose of inducing it to incur others that may
in the end plunge it into bankruptcy. The
honest citizen will not look with so much dis
trust ON those who would keep our rate of
taxation down at least to the present high
limit of two and half per cent, as ON those
who for the attainment of personal ends or
the satisfaction of personal ambition, would
send it up on the run to three or four per
cent
THE report of Superintendent johnson in
answer to an order of the Legislature, exhb
its in very striking manner the unequal ope-
ration of the present method of raising mon
ey for the support of schools, by requiring
towns to contribute one dollar for every in
habitant. Under this law the towns of Cum
berland County contribute for school pur-
poses ON an average only "a mills on dol
lar OF their valuation, while the Aroostook
towns average mills. The per capita tax
only requires ooe mill on a dollar in Portland,
and over cent and half in Dickeyville and
seventeen mills in Swan Island.
AMONG the corporators of the ''Maine In
dustrial School for Girls" we are glad to see
the names of many estimable ladies, like Mrs.
c. A. L. Sampson, Mrs. Julia Hines, Miss E.
G. Longfellow, Mrs. Ann E. Fernald, Mrs. d.
Gilman, Mrs. Susan H. Kingsbury, Mrs. Al
ba Burr, Mrs. John Rounds and Mrs. St.
John Smith. There are several ladies nam
ed in the above list to whose philanthropic
efforts the success of the enterprise so far has
been greatly due.