The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-02-01
Extracts from the Speech Of Hon.
A. w. rerreI ia the Staie senate,
July 10, 1876.

For the last few years this company,
and those whose franchises 1t has
purchased, have been eXpending their
means and absorbing millions of the
public domain of Texas in building
roads around an oblong square in
Northern Texas at the corners of
which are the towns of Marshall, Tex
arkana, Sherman and Dallas, and en-
closing territory having an average
width of sixty miles and au average
length of 100 miles. While thus
slowly travelingin circle instead fon
It's pretended mission to the Pacific, it
has interested centers of population to
clamor in these halls for extensions
and indulgence. 1t skirts on its pro-
cted line our northern border until
1t traverses the mountains and desert
living north and west of us, now unin-
habited, and which will never support
an agricultural population. Bat let us
not forget that this Texas and Pacific
Railroad Company holds its charter to
build and own a road, not from
Texas, but from the Congress of the
United States; and l now assert my
unalterable conviction that the finan-
cisl spectators who control it never
expect or intend if it is built that it
shall he subject to any control as to its
rate of charges by the Legislature of
this or of any other State through
which it may pass.
It's president, Mr.. Scott, asks Con-
gress to guarantee interest on the com
pany bonds to the amount of $40, 900
per mile. Now, if this be done, is
any one so blind as to believe that
Congress, aftec making the govern
ment responsible for over two hundred
and ninety-two millions eight hundred
and seventy-iive thousand dollars,
Which is the amount to be guaranteed,
will suffer Texas to control the rates
of freight in the interest OF our seaport
city2
If that road shall ever be constructed
with national aid it will cost as much
to transport a bale of merchandise
from California to Galveston as to land
it in st. Louis or Philadelphia. It
will require no great stretch of power
for the general government to claim
that a road thus built with national
credit is as much a national highway
as the Mississippi river, and that no
State traversed ~ it shall interfere by
q tariff of charges with the transit of
freight.
The Senator who dreams that the
owners of the Texas and Pacific fran
chise will ever consent for Texas to
regulate its tariff of freights, or that
the North and West, by whose consent
alone their bonds can De endorsed, will J
ever permit them to do II, has not con-
sidered how carefully united capital
and sectional majorities take care Of
themselves.
The charter granted by Congress, as
it now stands, fixes the eastern ter
minus at Marshall; 1t was placed that
far South to get majoritIes of Texas
Legislation, but now, at this very ses-
sion of Congress, among other amend
ments urged by Mr.. Scott before a
congressional committee, was that his
company should be granted the right
to change its eastern terminus to Texar-
kama, and TO the ''nortieasterH bound
dry" of Texas. The northeastern |
boundary" you perceive, indicates no |
! oint, and when you consider the further
application that be has urged before |
the congressional committee, for the |
righ, of constructing. and have recog-
nized a road from Sherman to Fort |
Worth as part OF his line, the whole
scheme of robbing Texas Of her public
doulain for the benefit Of ST. Louis and
Eastern citi,s Is apparent. Look at
your map. Marshall IS too low down
for St. Louis, so is Texarkana; road
is to be run from Fort Worth to Sher-
man, and then, IN the direction gf s..
Louis our northeastern boundary
will be touched at point one hundred |
and fifty miles northeast Of Marshall. |
Thus the vast parallelogram miscalled
q Pacific road, with which Texas has
been amused, is 10 be used only as
feeder for the sure enough thing yet to
be built, which Is TO touch the roads
now constructed only at Fort Worth |
and Sherman. Have we forgotten that
when the proposition was made in the |
St. LOUIS and Pacific Railroad Couven-i
ton for the construction Of =