National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-02-22
PACIFIC MAIL AND THE NEWYoRKBoARD
OF TRADE


Lately memorial from the Board of
Trade of the great city of New York was
presented to Congress, imploring that body
of patriots and statesmen not to do great
wrong to the commerce of the country by
csSceling the contract between the Govern
1rR. 1t and the Pacific Mail Steamship Com
pany for carrying the mails between Cali
fornia and China and Japan. This is not
one of the ordinary Congressional petitions
originated by needy politicians or specula-
tors, circulated in pot houses and signed by
bummers; it is the digniied and courteous
protest of all the leading merchants, bank
ers, manufacturers, importers, and other
prominent citizens of New York against
sweeping from the seas the last line of
steamers that carries the American f1ag-an
earnest plea that the legislators who should
be the protectors of American commerce
should not strike that commerce a fatal
blow-an appeal to the honorable body
not to dishonor itself and the nation by re-
pudiating an honest contract, and at the
same time visiting their Congressional sins
upOu Iuc luuOCSuI uCduo VI dCLnS nAoA
stockholders.
The Senate of the United States should
give this petition respectful and careful
consideration. On their part no reason ex-
lists for hasty and inconsiderate action-like
that of the House-for no member of the
Senate has been accused of having been
cover persuaded" by the subtle Irwin, the
crafty Schumacher, or the pastoral Bill
King. Consequently they can afford to be
governed in this subsidy matter by the
same rules of right and honor which con-
troll the business transactions of private in
dividuals. 1t will be brave act for the
powerful Senate to hold out its hand to the
helpless corporation and say justice shall be
done.
1t seems to be one Of the popular super
stitions of the present that all the great
corporations through which the heavy
work of the world is performed are so
rich and so reckless that they rather enjoy
being robbed in Christian and statesman
like way. This Pacific Mail Company was
organized in 1S4S, before the discovery of
gold in California, and from that time
through the days of Vanderbilt and the
Transit Company down to the present its
history has been one long bitter fight
against rival corporations, birds of prey of
the Washington lobby and the stock-job-
bers of Wall street. The present effort to
deprive the company of its subsidy is said
to be the work of the most artful and able
one of the financial Ishmaelites Of that
street, who considers this the creverest of
all his clever tricks, King of Erie and
Prince of Union Pacific. He has turned
loose the most powerful lobby ever organ
lied, and two or three of the great papers
of New York, in order to seduce or bully
Congress into such legislation as will en-
able him to cover his shorts" on Pacific
Mail, He has succeeded with the House,
let us see how it will be with the Senate!
We hope this company will be spared to
carry out the great work it has found to do
on the Pacific coast. 1t will be sad day
for that portion of the country, sad day
for all who feel any interest in our national
commerce when the American flag shall
disappear from the merchant steamers of
the North Pacific, and the trade which for
twenty years we have been building up
with China and Japan shall pass into the
hands of our English rivals. Whether this
shall be so or not depends upon the action
of the Senate, and in the words of the New
York memorial, we believe that "the
''highest considerations of national, polit-
'fcal and commercial nature demand that
American steamships shall not be with
drawn from the Pacific ocean"