The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-01-08
THE TRUE SOUTHERN LINE.

Pacific and the Texas Pacific roads, that Jour.
nal widely misoonstrues the views OF the
DEMOCRAT:
II is very remarkable that certain journals
and public men In the Southern States are
using their influence to destroy the only op-
IN the very great advantages Of Southern
competing trans-continental railroad from
the Mississippi to San Diego Bay on the Pa
ciiic coast. The New Orleans DEMoCRAT,
which has every reason in the world to favor
the Texas Pacific bill, because it gives posi-
tive and definite programme OF Southern rail
road connection with the Pacific, is harping
on the brilliant but demOnstrably false prom
ises Of Huntington to ''build road without
2 dollar OF cost to the government" and, hear
him, for the South" This he proposes to do
by getting 100000 acres Of land from the
government and building his road In north
easterly direction until he meets the Atchi-
son. Topeka and Santa Fe line, which runs
directly east. This Is Huntington's Southern
trsns-continental railroad, which his agents
assert is to 'build up New Orleans and other
Southern cities"
The DEMOCRAT Is not ''harping on the bril-
liant but demonstrably false promises Of
Huntington to build road for The South
The DEMOCRAT has just as little faith In the
purpose or professions Of Huntington to
build and run his road In the interest Of the
South as the Louisville paper has; but 1t has
besides, just as little faith In the professions
and purposes OF Tom Scott as it has In those
OF Huntington. This Is the difference be-
tween the C6urier-JoWnol Of Louisville,
and the DEMOCRAT, of New Orleans. The
guarantees offered the South, by both roads,
are the bare professions OF two rival railroad
kings, both utterly selfish and INSCRIPTIONS,
and both with vast interests which
any true and real Southern system
Of connections must iDjure. There is no
earthly doubt that the scheme Of the Hunt
ington people Is to make an Eastern connee-
ton from or near Eel Paso via the Atchison
Topeka and Santa Fe line But on the other
hand, any Southern man, not utterly bereft
Of his senses, or absolutely infatuated by Tom
Scott, must plainly see that the object Of the
latter individual Is to make the Texas Pacific
competing line-a vast feeder to his 5000 miles
Of completed Eastern lines concentrating at
st. Louis. In neither scheme do we recognize
such guarantees OF Southern connections as the
South should absolutely demand.
No more than the Cburier-Jounal do we
insist that Pacific railroad shall be built
exclusively In the interest Of New Orleans
or even exclusively In the interest OF the
South. But we do demand that If the gov
eminent aids Pacific road, or permits
another one to be constructed, that there
shall be full, absolute and ample guarantees
that the South shall share equally with
the West and the East tho benefits
Of 1t, and that there shall be Southern
in Its control. The present Texas
and Pacific bill furnishes no such guarantees,
and tits plain, to any unbiased mind, that only
such portions Of the South will be benefited by
1t as 1t may be necessary for the road or It's
to traverse to complete the con-
nection between it and Col SCOTS Pennsylva-
MIA lines. Louisiana and Mississippi are
excluded from any participation In Its ben
Gifts, and the interest Of the other Gulf
States, except the Northern portion OF Texas,
In it Is problematical On the other hand
st. Louis and the East have an absolute
guarantee In the enjoyment Of all its benefits
from the fact that the same man who controls
three thousand miles OF completed Eastern
roads centering In st. Louis controls the
Texas and Pacific. with which st. Louis al
ready has two independent connections Il
80 far as theSouthern Pacific enterprise and
The Texas Pacific scheme just now tend we
wee little In either Of them for the South, and
that part OF the South which has
,een most plundered and impoverished. The
professions OF Tom Scott are worth not one
whit more than those Of Huntington. Hunt |
ngton seems to be the honester Of the two
md the most candid. He does not claim to be |
building q road In the interest Of the South. |
lie declares that his purpose Is to build to |
Ell PasO and there look for eastern and south |
I'm connections. At the same time he has |
not concealed his purpose Of gobbling I'D the |
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe road and |
making connection with Chicago over that |
inc. This is candid II 1T Is not cheering. II |
he South expects to derive any benefits from |
lis line, her energy and enterprise must build |
he connection from San Antonio to El Paso, |
II the lines from New Orleans and Vicksburg
20 Shreveport, which, when the Texas or
Pacific is completed from Fort
Worth to Ell Paso will afford the Gulf States
Pacific connections. The bill of Senator john
,ton, with some notifications, provides for all
,hese connections, and for this reason we pre-
er 1t to the Scott bill.
Col. SCOTS professions are more fiattering
han those Of Mr.. Huntington, but they are
mere professions, and there Is nothing in the
record Of the man to entitle them to the least
It Is true that, for several
years, he has been warning upon the Union
and Central Pacific monopoly and talking
popiously OF great independent competing
line. But 1t Is q fact, which South
ern members of Congress should bear In
mind, that up to 1871 Col. Scott was presi-
dent Of that very monopoly, which was then
the feeder Of the Pennsylvania Central, Of
which he was also the president. The
country heard nothing then from that source
Of great Independent competing line.
The Union and Central lines then fed the
lines, and the latter had no
need Of "a Southern line" 1t was only after
Scott was deposed from the control of the
Union Pacific that he found out that the South