The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1873-10-16

superintendent and section men, its necessary
tolls and maximum freight rates, upon which
individuals and transportation companies
might place their engines and cars, under
proper regulations and time tables, permitting
the running of trains within twenty or thirty
minutes of each other, and at maximum
speed of fifteen miles an hour, as practical
railway men tell US may be done, would
doubtless be a source of positive relief, and
might be secured, providing sectional interests
could be 80 harmonized as to render it feasible
But side by side with this, and think promis
ing more immediate and sure relief, is the
aroused attention and the alarm Of the grea,
city of New York.
At last the great metropolis is startled by
the fact that those mighty circuits of com
MERGE which span the ocean-span the CONT
nent. and which have clothed her in robes of
purple, decked her with precious Jewels, and
set her down by the shores of the great deep,
at once the queen of the land and the queen
of the sea, are slowly, silently, yet surely
stealing away from her. Her Canadian rival
is Strengthening her rivers and deepening her
water courses. She invites all the tonnage of
the lakes to take free passage through her do
minions. z, She shortens the inland and ocean.
borne route by many miles, and though
she may carry only 80 much as q
penny per bushel cheaper, yet so
long as she can do this, just 80 sure as her
channels are open and water flows in them,
just 80 sure will the great grain fields of the
west pour through them their golden currents
to the sea.
New York understands this, and is bestirring
herself in view Of it. What can she do? In
wealth and numbers, State and city, she is an
empire. Whatever is necessary to be done to
protect her vital interes ts and preserve the
benefits of trade, most assuredly will be done
she has running through her interior canal
which, by proper Improvement may be m ade
as capacious as river. 1t is said that the
Erie Canal In it's present condition, with its
lateral branches, in the season Of navigation
can transport more heavy tonnage from West
to East than all the trunk-line railways COM
blned from the st Lawrence to the Potomac,
and that 1t actually does transport five times
as much az the New York Central Railway.
The plodding canal-boat rings no bells, blows
no whistles, nor INDUCES in any sort of fuss or
fury, yet each one bears silently along more
tonnage than the average freight train with all
its rattle and thunder.
see it stated that Sin the fall of 1868 the
Erie Canal was closed suddenly by frost, and
large number of loaded boats on their way
East were stopped for the winter-most Of
them between Rome and Albany. 1t was esti-
mated that 5000 900 bushels of grain were
thus suddenly stopped by ice on their way to
market A canal-boat will carry about 5000
bushels Of wheat; freigdt-car about 800
bushels. train of twenty-seven cars will
therefore, carry about the same number of
bushels of wheat as single canal boat. Now,
if the New York Central Railroad had at once
commenced work to move for ward the grain
frozen up in the Erie Canal, and had never
run Car west of Rome, but had delivered
every three hours train in New York, work
ing night and day, Sundays and week days,
it would have taken them nearly eighty days
to have emptied the Erie Canal In the
spring, when the sun came out and opened the
Erie Canal, forty-eight hours put every bushel
at tide-water."
Mr.. E. II. Walker, ssatician of the New
York Produce Exchange, testified before the
Senate Transportation Committee that the
capacity of the Fire Canal to move freight
from west to east with the pre- sent dimension
of its locks, they being Is feet wide with feet
depth of water, is 374O, 900 tons annually,
and that the greatest impediment was the
limited capacity of the locks, but that with
these enlarged to 26 feet in width and tn e
canal completed according to plans submitted
IN 1868, its annual capacity would be "a 600,
600 tons, or more than six times its present
capacity. Now, if these estimates be at all
correct, then we have here in one single outlet a
capacity at least twenty-five tim IS greater than
all the trunk-line railways combined
Turning now to the Canadian route and
putting these two together without mentioning
others which may be established, and think
you have found here silent yet mighty force
which with reasonable fidelity on the part of the
people, can put hook in the j aw of this rail-
way power and bring it into subj ection and
obedience to law, and is it not high time, fel.
low-citizens, this were done? If any foreign
princs were to attempt to set up mo.
narchisl government in this country, on
no matter how limited scale, it would
breed revolution in thirty days.
yet. Thomas SCOTT, or Cornelius Vanderbilt,
yields more absolute pc YER to-day than some
OF the potentates of Europe. Two great cities,
Boston and New York, one the cradle of lib.
erty, the other the metropolis OF the Western
world, stand absolutely trembling at this mo
ment in the presence of one mans purposes
These men boast of their independence of
legislatures and courts, arrogate to themselves
the bearing Of princes, and treat the humblest
petitions of the people with the utmost scorn
and contempt. The people themselves are
powerless, while their corrupt and dishonest
legislators, like cringing ours, fawn at the
feet of these men and humbly lick the hand,
not that smites them, but that feeds them and
gives them gold This is the power, more
than all others, which is breaking the spirits of
our people and making towards of US all.n
II is the oanker which is eating out the very
hearts core of American manhood God
IN His wisdom only knows whether it be pos
sible for this power to divide and conquer, but
if it can, then are our liberties overthrown at
last
Ispeak as no alarmist, / simply utter the
thoughts of every rejecting mind Thoughts,
not born of days excitement, but which the
events of the last ten years have clused every
man to ponder.
Farmers of Waukesha County, farmers of
Wisconsin and the West, what ara your pur-
poses in the pres encs of these grave and
threatening dangers? Do you intend, in dead
earnest to grapple these Titans of Commerce
If you do, then, like Fitz James of old, you
must remember
That no maiden's hand is round thee thrownl
That desperate grasp, thy form might feelI
Through bars OF brass and triple steel