The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-05-03

and which serves them in nothing. We
have little knowledge of the personal
virtues or wees of VIM. Z. Dodge
BIackmaIlers once made him pay, be-
cause, as he said, he is too old to be
annoyed with countless suits, in de
praved courts, conducted by witnesses
who get half they make on judgments
and executions. He was able to buy
peace, and bought it, and then was cho-
sen president of the Chamber Of Com
merce of the city of New FORK blythe most
honorable men of the great metropolis.
At home Mr.. Dodge is famed for his
generosity to the poor and unfortunate,
even as he loaned SiOO, 600 to the In
ternatlonai Railway when it was re-
duced 10 the utmost straits. He has
spent a million or two in Texas and
taken nothing away except villiication
at the hands of those whom he has
surely served as few individuals have
ever served commonwealth. We do
not see, if Mr.. Dodge OILY sought to
save himself and associates in misfor-
tune, why he should have been so
soundly abused, and now that the
course of events is again changed and
we discover how deeply the Texas Cen
tral has been involved and how its
creditors must suffer, and how Morgan
finds it impossible to extinguish the
vast floating debt, and that English
bondholders and creditors are forced
to do what Dodge attempted-in view
of these simple facts 1t Is surely proper
that mistakes made and in Justice done
by the press of Texas should be cor
rected. Some one stated that Mr.
Dodge was in the car, or that it was
his car, that killed the poor child in
the streets of this city. He was on
another road at the time, or had just
left it. But if the facts were as al
legged, he was as innocent personally
of the accident as the Houston writers
who assailed him. He was abused,
too, because, philanthropist and Chris
tian as he is and has ever been
deemed, in q public speech in this
city, he ADVISED benighted" citizens
of the South to vote for the Maine
liquor law. In this he surely
demonstrated the fact that he loved
the people more than he loves the
! whisky and beer which enriches his
railway through transportation.
But Texas has other railways to
build. The task of bridging distances
is only begun. If legislatures cannot
be trusted; if lands are given when
bonds were promised; if contracts
made by one legislature may be re-
pudiated by another and lands granted
when bonds were agreed to be loaned,
and then men who spend millions here
are to be reviled because they resort to
the courts to prevent the rapid accumu-
lation of debts by which their property
is destroyed-surely such men, under
such circumstances, do not deserve the
execrations of the press of Texas. We
are moved to make these suggestions
by the fact that the lapse of few
weeks has enabled us to see the true
state of the case in all its aspects and
now when we discover that the recent
ly created floating Indebtedness of the
Central road is too great for Morgan to
assume and manage, and when the
English bankers and creditors are i'm
PEELED to follow in Mr.. Dodge's foot
steps and file bill for the foreclosure
of mortgages and appointment of a
trustee, we can surely afford to with
hold the severe judgment pronounced
by our contemporaries and inquire
whether the New York Commodore
and the New York merchant deserve
execrations and criticisms to which
they have been most harshely subjected.