The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-02-10
THE PLAIN FACTS AND NEEDS OF
TEXAS.

People ask everybody for information
about the California and Texas road. Tom
scott has been at work for years in Texas.
lie and his predecessors have built several
miles in spots and the people are accus-
toned to contemplate his name and deeds.
He is good and great man. We know he
Is because of the respect for his wishes al
ways manifested by legislative bodies
Even constitutional conventions bow rever
emily before the majesty of his worth. He
came to Austin, was rejected with derision :;
the sun rose and set and rose again and
Old Rutabaga himself had been magnetised
and, leading the way, thought himself sharp
when he hired Tom Scott to become main
stay OF the new Constitution, giving an en-
pire on condition that the Constitution
he adopted. To assure this consumma-
tion it was only necessary to induce ex-Gov.
Davis to oppose it, and this was an easy
task, and when it was accomplished Tom
Scott had disposed of Texas.
He then appeared in Washington. He
confesses his purpose to build road to
compete with the Union and Pacific roads
controlled by Jay Gould aud Huntington,
and passing through st. Louis and Phila-
delphia. These are the cities whose neces-
sites demand the construction of this COM
peting road. Texas is only incidentally
and indirectly concerned in results of COM
petition between two st. Louis roads to
san Francisco, and when we find that Gould
and Huntington have taken up the task
abandoned by Tom Scott and that they have
already built a road more than 600 miles on
direct line from San Francisco to Calves
ton, we are not so devoted to Tom Scott
that we do not prefer the plans of Hunting
ton. Tom Scott tolls for st. Louis; Hun
tington, for the South. Tom Scott is i'm
peeled by his interests to save seven mil
lions he has sunk in the st. Louis Atlantic
and Pacific road, and, by his devotion to
the Pennsylvania Central, to betray Texas
and the South; and Huntington comes to
the Gulf because ice and snow block up his
present route through st. Louis from the
Pacific to the Atlantic. Huntington brings
down the wealth of Oregon and of Cali
fornia and deposits it here; Tom Scott's
trunk line deposits it in Philadelphia. Hun
tington has already spanned very nearly
half the distance between San Francisco
and Texas; and Tom Scott has been smash
ing things between Dallas and Fort Worth
for several years past. Huntington, even
since the collapse of Jay Cooke and the in
auguration of the Radical policy of con-
tracting the pockets of the people and dis
tending those of party leaders, has gone
steadily forward, building mile each day.
and often three miles, save when crossing
mountain districts, and at this hour his road
for very nearly half tie distance between
San Francisco and Texas Is finished. Hun
tington has built in the two last years of
terrible financial convulsiOn two hundred
and sixty miles of the road to Galveston
over the mountainous districts of Southern
California and expended on the work twen-
ty millions of dollars. In fact, this power
ful corporation, during the years designated,
expended more money than all other corpo
ratious, for like purposes, in the United
States. Remember that all this vast wealth
has been used to connect the Pacific with
the Gulf of Mexico. All this enormous out
lay by Huntington and his associates from
San Francisco to the Rio Gila in Southern
Arizona is made to secure to San Francisco
and the Pacific ports of California the short
est possible route for heavy freights from
one to the other ocean, and all this is a posi-
tive contribution toward second transcon-
tinental railroad on the thirty-second par
allel, and is greater than any other corpora
ton has made-however great may be its
show of zeal for a so-called Southern line
to the Pacific, whose terminus and connec-
tions are on Northern territory. No citizen
of Texas can con over a map of the contl-
nent and read the arguments addressed by
Tom Scott to congressional committees and
deny that every interest and necessity of
Texas and the South impels us to prefer the
cession to Huntington to that proposed to
be made to Tom Scott.