Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-07-19
THE PROBLEM OF THE HOUR.


r. ton?
To the Editer of the Globe.
have read, with profound interest in the
welfare of the city Of st. Paul and with anx-
iety as to it's metropolitan future, the address
OF the Executive committee the exhaustive
warnings Of the public press, and last but not
least, the letter of Captain Banning propos-
ing his amendment of the constitution
OF Minnesota to regulate the conditions of
commerce outside of the State.
These various documents and t'eir
authors appear to think the Chicago &
Northwestern and st. Paul railroads are about
to gulp down st. Paul and Minneapolis, but
how, when and where the act of deglutitlon
is to OCCUR is somewhat mystery.
confess to an inability to
perceive how these corporations
can destroy st. Paul and the State of Mime
sofa without inficting mortal wounds on
themselves and their termi al points. It Is
also somewhat surprising that the very men
who taxed the people of this CITY $3.50, 900 in
aid of these roads, should have failed to pro-
vide any safeguards for the city. They har-
rangued and bulldozed the city for
bonus of 100000 to the Lake Superior
q Mississippi railroad, now the st. Paul
Duluth, this was Capt. Banning's sugar
coated pilD 100000 to the ST Paul & Chi
cago railroad company, and $4,000 to the
Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad company
total, $35O,OOO.
Where did the money 90? Undoubtedly
to the only classes who ever made money out
of railroads in this portion of tho monopoly
V1n0VAf0. 41oso Ia
| railroad lawyers, railroad doctors, railroad
prea ,hers, and railroad Republican mem Ders
of Congress. The history of railroad legis
lation in Minnesota is full of racy matter,
but do not believe that any subsequent
chapter will tell of the destruction of St.
Paul and Minneapolis. In the past there
mas been q grab game dating
back to the forfeiture of the first
grant to build the Western road, and in
Guiding the subsequent land grant of six
millions of acres, when every politician and
every paper town, without reference to geop-
raphy or honesty, rushed in to sieze slice
They first stole the lands. and then wanted
the people to pay them SIS, DOC, 900 to build
the roads. It is too late to talk about this
matter now, but it is not too late to protest
abainst another bonus from this city to any
company on earth, and this protest I, for
one, enter now.
The people of st. Paul have been more
than generous. Besides the $35O,OOO vo,ed
they have yielded to these corporations pow.
ers which virtually amount to confiscation
of private property. The present mode
of condemning and taking the property
of the citizen is little better than robbery.
The entire levee.of the city has been seized
and appropriated, and river navigation
blockaded for the convenience of railroad
magnates, and now we are told that St. Pau
is about to be cut off from the rest of the
world and fenced in as graveyard. DOM
believe it. I don't believe there is any
power to do it. If there is the prosperity 81
the city depends upon most precarious
| tenure.
I have not been able to see any practical
suggestion for the overwhelming dangers sc
graphically depicted. Railroad stock can BIZ
bought like any other property, and there is
no way to prevent money from buying 9
majority of stock, and majority of the
stock will govern the affairs of the corpora
ton.
| There is remedy in competing lines OF
transportation, and the most formidable
competitor of the railroad is water. While l
believe that the dangers to St. Paul have
/ NS0ss6eOA0V0uS
preaching convocation could not do better
than directing its attention to the building
of q canal from st. Paul to Lake Superior.
| With continuous chain of lakes and rivers
it is perfectly practicable to build canal
from the Mississippi to the Bay of ST. Louis
on the lake. If our Congressman had
worked for this instead of for appropria.
tinos to the Fox river improvement,
we might have had the canal Iona
ago. This communication is already too
long for argument and details. Let us have
the st. Paul, Minneapolis, Mississippi
and Lake Superior canal, and we shall have
no difficulty in getting our products to the
Atlantic sea-board; and then when Window
gets to be President of the United States, he
will doubtless resume his mammoth schemes
of transportation inaugurateda few years ago
and build US canal through the portals Of
the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
We shall hardly need it until his African ex-
odus is fixed fact, and Window is Presi-
dent. OSCAR STEPHENSON.