Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-04-15
SOUTHERN PAcIFIc-sO CALLED.

The able speech of Gen. Atkins, in
favor of the Southern Pacific Railroad,
we have read with much interest. The
Importance of such road to the COM
mercial progress of the South we fully
recognize, but the real question is
can we get it? The Two projects be-
fore Congress place the South between
two fires and its safety, in our opinion,
lies in getting out of the reach Of both.
The scheme of Tom Scott-in whom
we have no confdence-looks solely to
the prosperity of Philadelphia and the
Pennsylvania Central, by monopolizing
a larger portion of Southern trade and
diverting it more effectually from those
points which nature has indicated
as the shipping depOts of Southern
and Western products. Huntington,
on the other hand, fearing a COM
peting line to the Pacific, is in
tent upon controlling such com
peting road, and therefore propo-
SEES to build the Southern Pacific with
out any subsidy save the land grant
Should he succeed, San Francisco, in
stead of San Diego. will be the terminus,
and the junction of the Northern and
Southern Pacific at that point and un-
der his control, they will cease to be
competing lines, and the trade of both
will be concentrated at Northern ports
with such terms for freight and passage
as he may dictate.
In neither scheme do we see any
thing more than an artful device to
secure Southernsupport fora Northern
monopoly Southern surrender ofIts
natural advantages and continued
commercial dependence upon the
North. Since the war the South has
been heavily taxed for the benefit of
the Northern Pacific, one of the hugest
ofhuge swindles to build up North
ern capital and deplete the pockets of
honest labor throughout the Union.
And now Scott and Huntington, under
the false pretence of developing the
South, ask Congress for aid to consum-
mate their conspiracy to tax, defraud
aud impOverish us. 1t is more than
doubtful WEATHER a single Congress
man from the North would vote sub
sidy to strictly Southern road to the
Pacific and under strictly South
ern management, and until such a road
can be secured let US be content with
u slower development of Southern re-
sources rather than endorse and aid a
scheme intended to make those resour-
ces tributary, perhaps for all time, to
Northern monopolies.
As important as such road would
be to the South, our conviction is
strong that the proposed Mississippi
Valley Trading Company, with its IA
cilities for direct foreign trade, with
its barges and tOw-boats navigating
every river tributary to the Mississippi |
and the Gulf, will more rapidly and |
permanently regenerate the South than
any road to the Pacific Its cheaper
freights will relieve production of
much Of the burden imposed upon it
by railroad monopolies, and secure to
Western and Southern agriculture all |
the difference between cheap water
transportation and the exorbitant rates
imposed by railroad combinations
This is our programme for the devel
opment of the resources of the South
and West, and under its wealth-pro-
ducing influence railroads can be built
wherever needed-even to the Pacific |
without mortgaging the South TO
Scott or Huntington, for their disinter-
ested offer to help this section to cut
its own throat-a contamination de- |
voutly prayed for by corrul t combi-
nations and the malignant followers of
the bloody shirt.