The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-09-23
TEXAS PACIFIC RAILROAD.
Opposition in virginia-Letter Of Gen. Beau.
regard to Senator Gordon.
[Richmond Dispatch, Sept. III

IRichmond Dispatch, Sept. III
HEALING SPRINGS, BATH COUNTY, Va,
September 9, 1875.
Gen. John B. Gordon, United States Senator,
Atlanta, Ga:
Mn Dear General knowing the interest you
take in all public questions touching the
welfare and prosperity not only of your own
great State, but Of her sister commonwealths,
I take the liberty of making you the medium
through which, as citizen Of the South, I
may set forth some of the views I entertain
upon q measure, second to none in import
ance, in which our section has q common
concern, and against which, to my surprise,
find some few gentlemen in this State mani
Testing remarkable opposition. l mean the
plan submitted to the last Congress for COM
pleting the trans-contineatal railroad to the
Pacific upon the thirty-second parallel of
latitude.
Some few weeks ago United States Senator
Johnston, of Virginia, addressed letter to
Gen. Joseph r. Anderson, of Richmond,
Va.-than whom there is not more public
spirited gentleman in this State or in the
South-setting forth views so antagonistic to
this bill that it received prompt and en-
phatic reply from Mr.. Bond, Vice President
OF the Texas and Pacific Railway Company.
The first was published in the Richmond
Wing; the latter in the Dispatch, of the
same city. Lest they should not have
fallen under your eye, I shall enclose
them to you. l have perused very care
fully and critically the honorable Sena-
tors lengthy communication; for coming
from 80 distinguished source, and himself
the representative in part in the United States
Senate of this great and revered OF States, l
bethought me that perhaps it contained solid
and ananswerable, and therefore to me novel,
arguments against a scheme upon which [
had supposed the entire South was unit. I
have failed to discover, however, with all re-
spect to the author, the slightest ground to
change the opinions I had formed of this
great enterprise, and the reasonable and
practicable plan for obtaining Government
aid for its contamination. Mr.. Bonds letter
to Gen. Anderson humbly conceive to be a
complete and triumphant answer to the Sena-
tors objections. It is SO regarded, I Learn,
by most of the leading men in this State.
The charge Of the Senator that the bill was
not for q Southern road, but Northern road
in disguise, is signally refuted by the Vice
President of the Texas and Pacific Company
in the irresistible array of facts going to show
that the bill asking government aid before the
last Congress had the Endorsement of the pub.
lie sentiment of the South and Southwest
through legislative bodies, chambers of COM
merce and boards of trade, of 1 believe, all
the Southern States or Southern cities. In
deed, in eight of the Southern States they
went SO far as to pass resolutions in their
Legislatures "instructing their Senators and
requesting their Representatives to vote aid
to the Texas and Pacific Railway route to the
Pacific.
And it is at least little curious, and, 1
confess, to me inexplicable, how the charge
that the bill was in Northern interests could
have been made in the face of this record.
Then, too, if mistake not, the only vote that
was taken on this measure was in the lower
House OF Congress, when the indications of
the sentiments of the Southern members
were greatly in favor of the bill, while those
from the North and Northwest were as pro.
noncez against it. Surely this was a result
very irreconcilable with the allegation that it
was intended to defeat the great commercial
and agricultural interests of the Southern
States. When it is borne in mind that
the present Texas and Pacific Company
have already built, equipped, and have
In good running order, several hundred miles
of this road, and that they have been exam
ined and accepted by the United States Gov
eminent in accordance with the stipulations
of their charter; that they are in possession
of millions of acres and land reservations
from both the General Government and State |
of Texas; that they show "that the routes of
ell the divisions to the Pacific have been de-
veloped with the greatest care, and that their |
location has required ten thousand miles of
instrumental lines and fifteen thousand miles |
of reconnaissance" it is not too much to say
that if southern trans-continental line is to |
be built during the last quarter of this GEN.
fury it must be done under the auspices Of
the present company.
But, my dear General, 1 did not mean to
discuss this subject at such length in this
a<%a hor hot hocr
and will continue to receive, your careful
My object has been chiefly to
call your attention to the anomalous move
ment in this State to- defeat a measure, in the
success of which we all feel so intense an in
terest. With me it has been cherished hope
for years, and the fact that it is projected by
Col. Scott, with whom I am only slightly ac-
1uainted- in any way connected weighs
not feather in my mind against the stupen-
dous advantage Of bringing the immense and
varied trade, which will be developed along
the whole line of this road to the Pacific, many
hundred miles nearer than the other trans
continental routes to every Southern city be-
tween the two oce ans, and from the Potomac
TO New Orleans and the Rio Grande.
The objection of Senator Johnston to the
difference of gauge between the Texas Pacific
Railroad -four feet eight and half inches)
and the railroads of the cis-Mississippi
Southern States Give feeD has been so sue
,esstully answered by MIR. Bond that l will
)nly add that engineers do not attach at pres
snt much importance to that obstacle, which
,ot long since was considered almost insur-
nountable.
As to the delays and difficulties of trains
'rossing the Mississippi River at Vicksburg
,r Memphis, they will exist, whatever may be
he gauge adopted, until tunnel shall
De constructed under the river at either
,oint-an undertaking which many Of US
doubtless will live to see. Meanwhile we
AN adopt the plan of ferrying the trains
cross the river, so successfully, economical
J, and expeditiously practiced daily by Mr..
)harles Morgan on his New Orleans and
Texas Railroad. But any delay due to diff
erence of gauge or crossing of the river will
70 more than amply compensated by the
hortness of the routes from Fort Worth to
Jew Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, Savannah,
nd Norfolk.
am, yours, very truly,
G. T. BEAUREGARD.