The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-01-25
CONGRESS- TO RESToRE THE
DOMAIN OF TEXAS.

The government Of the United States
cannot afford, even If Scot assent, to
suffer the public domain OF Texas. con
cctcd for one purpose, TO be appro-
p-.a.cG for another. When Texas
made TIC concession to the Texas and
Pacific Company, the trunk line was to
e:o.s Texas from Shreveport to For:
/ Worth and Il P4so. Scott came down
/ after Fremont and secured possession
Of the property and franchises. lie
/ has been a lifelong scrvi.or Of q Penn
/ -y.vanIa and ST. Louis system of roads.
To these he proposed to subordinate IL
4 5 u.hern P4cld- scheme. He h!.t
nouids an innocent, unsusprctIug leg
| ia!ature TO his purposes, and securing
the land for the !S1uhers road hics
away to Washington and transfers it
to q Northern road. Instead of build
M Southern Pacific he builds rival
| 70 jay G3uli's Union Pacific. This il
not in accordance with the design Of
this commonwealth when this railway
scheme was endowed. The trunk line
is stolen from Us and from the South,
aud we are given "branches." II Scott
must Ilcaye Texas for Ninita and 1t.
Louis at the one hundred and third
meridian let him be required to leave
Texas in thc condition in which lie
found Texas. Tom Scott will manage
the road when it is finished. He will
shape its schedules and control its
90 ignorant that he does not know that
the diversion Of the road from Texas
at the one hundrcd and third meridian
is designed to force all freight and
travel through st. Louis and over the
St. Louis bridge and Pennsylvania
Central to Philadelphia rather than to
Galveston or Memphis or Norfolk or
Charleston or New Orleans. Plainly
the road is no longer Texas or South
crn Pacific, and since Texas is swim
died, if Scott's purposes, as now de-
fined, be executed, the land grant OF
Texas should revert to the State
and the bill enacted by Con
gress should so provide. AS we
have shown and as demonstra-
ted too plainly for denial in
the State Senate by Judge Terrell, the
Congress cannot regulate fare and
freight rates on the road unless the do
main of Texas be restored to the State.
Again and again, when making and re-
newing the grant, has Texas provided
that the State should at all tines iix
rates for passengers and freights. Scot,
having secured the land grant, not
only changes the route of the road,
divcrting it from Texas and from the
South, but his bill before Congress de
prvcs Texas of the power to regulate
rates and tolls and schedules, transfer
ing this right to Congress; IN other
word, to Philadelphia and St. Louis.
The road we endowed a. the Texas and
Pacific has become the St. Louis ana
Pacific, entering and crossing the IN
inhabited ''Ean handle" of the North
west. We charter ami endow and be
gin a road for the commonwealth and
for the Impoverished cities and States
of the South, and remorseless selfish
ness must appropriate it. And not
only is the road taken from the Soath,
but consigned to the management Of
those whose interests involving more
dian 500, coo, 600, impel them SO to
organize its management and freight
and passenger schedules that no pas
scnger or balo OF freight will ever leave
the East or West to pass to a Southern
city or seaport or over a Southern
"hranch." The very bill before Con
grcss itself, as now transformed, de
dominates the original "trunk line Il
"brauch.' 1t is not the road that
TCNas endowed with enormous wealth
and therefore the grant is forfeited,
and since the contract between Texas
ana the Texas and Pacific Company Is
openly annullcd by giving Congress,
instead of the State, the right to reg
ulate tolls, the contract is annulIed
and the land, if Congress have any
sense of honor and right, will be re-