Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-01-19
FISK.


Jan. sIh came out in mourning over the
death OF Fisk, and here is its editorial no.
lice of the event, which we present TO our
readers by way of contrast to the whole
sale aud hcartlcss denunciation indulped
in by many of our exchanges:
James Fisk is dead. There Is a saddon-
ing glance from one to another this morn
ing, as in low and solemn tones men con-
verse of the departed. No death that has
occurred since Abraham Lincoln was as
sassinated, has produced so deep, so uni
versal an emotion in our commutitv.
There are those who were born in afllu-
once-amid the pride Of aristocracy, who
affect TO scorn the man who from the son
of tin-peddler in an eastern State rose to
the proud position of Col. James Fisk, Jr.,
controlling tho chief railroad interests of a
continent. We always hear the howl of
the envious when poor man of humble
birth rises TO ailluence and high position.
But we, the residents on the line of Erie,
know that when MIR. Fisk first took hold of
the Eric road it was controlled mainly by
band of European capitalists who sucked
every penny Of its resources to foreign
countries, and who had worn down its rails
to strips, had replaced no bridges, built no
depots to accommodate the people, and left
its cars to run out and wear out until ii
was hardly safe to travel the fifteen miles
fro u Paterson to New York.
TO cap the climax, the imbecile and hyp-
ocritical Drew, who would rob the road to
make himself famous by building Metho-
t,.l
concern to Cornelius Vanderbilt, the most
heartless of all railroad kings. 1t was at
this period that James Fisk and Jay Gould,
to save the road from utter ruin, deemed
most extraordinary measures necessary
measures which at once gave them such
control over the road as enabled them to
circumvent the foreign capitalists and Van
derblt at the same time; and the pledge
then made by James Fisk, that lie would
make the Eric the finest and best road in
tho world has been realized.
Today the Erie and its connections are
the won der of the world. Its broad guage
cars, its regularity Of time, its careful and
prudent management, its iron and stone
viaducts or bridges, its steel faced track, all
attest the perfection Of its management,
whilst its control Of its own coal deposits
and diverging and connecting lines, all
prove the foresight of the great commander
of its interests, who now lies dead from the
hands of an assassin, and whose corpse is
now on its way to the little plot in the viii
age burial ground on the slopes of Brattle-
boro.
Col. James Fisk, Jr., was the pioneer in
magnificent national railroading enterprise
on this continent. As it remained for Ma
poleon Bonaparte, the humble little boy
from the insignificant isle of Corsica, to
teach the nations Of the world how to con-
troll great armies and conduct immense
campaigns before thought impossible, so it
remained for James Fisk, the son of tin
peddler of a small eastern village, to teach
venerable railroad kings like Vanderbilt,
and rusty railroad corporations, the pow
ers and necessities of this age of progress
and the real resources of the country.
1t is unnecessary to recapitulate the ma
ny various acts of James Fisk, which have
tended TO develop and perfect the greatest
system of modern transfer, and to realize
what ere his event was considered wild and
visionary.
TO Paterson Col. james Fisk was friend
and we deeply regret his death. Despite
the pestilent lawsuits started here by HoX-
sey and his gang, and as we have always
believed, persevered in for the purposes of
black mail and blood money, Col. Fisk has
ever treated our people kindly and with
every consideration for their comfort, Civ
4 1 1 L
of our machinists and throwing a great
number of his orders toward our mechan-
les, and during the whole of the Hoxsey
furorc against Eric, James Fisk never re-
taliated on our people and simply defended
himself
James Fisk IL now dead. There arc
plenty of men who will talk of him with
the same envy which poisoned the lips OF
people when he was living. There are foul
birds ever fitting about in the neighbor-
hood of dead carcass, ready TO speak lily
even of the dying; but despite the maig-
macy and hate, and the worst that can bc
said, the Prince of Eric will ever live in
the pleasing remembrance OF all who knew
him.
We look upon James Fisk as one of the
most remarkable types Of the national char
acter as yet developed. We regard his
death as a private and personal grief and 9
public and national calamity.
As for the miserable and cowartlly assas
sin who took his life let him be delivered
over to the law TO be swung up in the storl
cause of justice, with Bolts and other muir
derers, whose existence endanger human
ty. Any other death would be too goot
for so devilsh an assassin, whose worth
less life it is true, can lily atone for tn,
wondrous and brilliant spirit he has "pu
out = and hangman's knot, death b.,
the rope and an eternity of damnation il
too little punishment for his miserable
on11l