The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-08-31
TOW SCOfr's POHFEITURE OF HIS
LAND GHsNr ANO TEXAN CON-
GRESSMEN.

Again and again the STATESMAN and Bon
ham Ne1s have asserted that Tom Scott had
forfeited his charter and enormous land
subsidy even before this last Legislature met.
havi ug no personal interest in either Scott's
or Huntington's fortunes, have stated,
after thorough examination of Scott's char
ters and amendments, that nothing would
he easier than the nulifcation of these
| grants through the intervention of the Fed
eral courts. Judge Terrell, in his speech
n the Senate on the nineteenth inst, by
.eference 10 plain, uDquestioned facts and TO
| provisions o: the different charters of the
Texas and Pacific Company, demonstrated
the fact hat Scott had lost all claims upon
the Texas and Pacific reservation even be-
| fore the ordinance of the Constitutional
Convention, which declares that in view
OF the financial MIsFoRTUNEs, no existing
railroad company, chartered or holding
grants under this State, which has hereto
fore organized and commenced work in good
faith, shall be considered as having lost
any of its rights, privileges or grants prior
to the next session of the Legislature of the
State by virtue Of lapse of time BETWEEN
Sow and that time" The language is alb
,urdly awkward but plainly intelligi-
bic. 1t is as plain as it is unique
Tom Scott had already forfeited the
grant when this d" between-Now and that
time" ordinance was adopted. The ord1-
narce IS not retrospective. 1t renews no
grants already lapsed, and the act of the
Legislature of March 10, 1875, to relieve
the Texas and Pacific Company, required
the completion of twenty miles of the road
from Brookston to TeXarkana by the first
of November, 1875. Not mile of tins
portion of the Texas and Pacific road was
built when the Ordinance" above quoted
was enacted. The Legislature Just ad-
journed did nothing, and could do nothing,
to remedy the lapse of the land grant. l.
did not attempt to renew it, and jU only re-
mains for the courts to interpose in behalf
of the State and people and schools of
Texas. Scott should have, if he build
Texas and Pacific, and not St. Louis and
Pacitic. road, the same subvention that has
been made to other Railway builders, but
this donation of property, worth twenty or
thirty millions and soon worth fifty mil |
lions, to the builder of road designed |
solely for the behoof of ST. Louis and Phil |
adelphia and to drain Texas and the roads |
of Texas, should be held to strict compli- |
ance with the country's laws. II may I've |
proper to add that the road, as accepted, |
when alleged to be finished to Texarkana,
was constructed with unparalleled rapidity |
and may have been in no proper sense |
properly built and finished railway Has |
it been accepted as such
If there be no forfeiture, If the road be |
properly built and properly finished, and |
the words employed by Old Rutabaga,
when he wrote the ordinance designed to
save Tom Scott, mean anything, then it
becomes the people of Texas to see that
the Congress of the United States do not
aid Tom Scott In constructing road across
the continent wuTUu I,ur-~-----a
every design of those lawgivers of Texas
WuO COhSOANSO b1AC pun pOSC Vi
building and endowed most munifcently |
a corporation that might build Pacific
railway for Tex and for the cities and |
towns and people of Texas and not for
Philadelphia or St. Louis, or for the Penn
sylvania Central.
Again, for arguments sake, laying aside
all these questions and accepting the for
feiture as not made, and giving to the Leg
islature the right to legislate for Tom Scott
in this matter, we are compelled to admit
no relief, even then, was granted him. Ii
the ordinance suspending forfeitures could
apply to the Texas and Pacific, the failure
to pass the bill of relief on or before the
thirty-irst day of July, within itself, Gre
ated the forfeiture, for the courts of the
country will hold that the Legislature was
de .jore body only until that day, while its
existence, subsequent to this date, was that
of q de ,tactO body. A Legislature must re-
spect it's own laws until repealed as re-
quired by law, and the joint resolution of
adjournment was one of the unrepealed
laws of the Fifteenth Legislature.