Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-17

FRIDAY EVENING. JUNE II, 1851.

zaneaster fr.telhsenrer.
FRIDAY EVENING. JUNE II, 1881.
The Readlng Samson.
There is no disputing that Mr.. Gowen
is giant in force. Nowhere among OuI
public men can another one be pointed
to, equal to him in personal strength.
The defects and the excellencies of his
character are equally conspicuous, as
they are equally decided. No man could
stand forth SO efficiently as Mr.. Gowen
as buiwark of defense to the Read.
ing railroad company in its present
time of trouble, when its spoliar
ton, is sought by a, most powerful
rival It Is quite safe to say that but fol-
Mr.. sG0wens the Pennsylvania railroad
would control the Reading and what
that control would mean Mr.. Gowen very
vividly portrayed in the picture he pre-
sented of the strangled Philadelphia &
Erie railroad. Mr.. Gowen stands be-
fore the world tie champion of his CON-
pany, abandoned by the single English
firm which controls one-third of its
stock and yet that firm stands conspic-
uously alone in opposition to the remain
der of thestockholders, who sustain their
president. This is a very singular situ-
alton and its logic shows that the
McCalmonts are not directed in their
own interest as shareholders for the
many cannot well he wrong and only
these two men he right and that when
one of the two is mentally paralyzed, and
the other might be but that he is not Gre
dited with much mind to be SO stricken.
That the McCalmOnt stock is be-
ing worked in the interest OF the Penn
sylvania railroad, and therefore against
that OF the company, is asfact which ob-
tains universal credence. The contest
could not be carried on without disclosing
the influence behind it. All the tools are
Pennsylvania tools, from Mr.. Bond, the
proposed president, down through all the
solicitors, lawyers and agents, and even
up to the supreme court, as Mr.. GOwen
boldly declared.
Boldness is one of Mr.. Gowen's marked
virtues. Some call it rashness and RASH
ness it is on the usual Interpretation Of
the term. And yet it is such rashness
as is often demonstrated by time to be
no such thing. 1t is an honest rashness.
He speaks his honest convictions and
they are generally convictions founded
upon sufficient evidence. 1t was, for i'll
stance, apparently rash in Mr.. Gowen to
attack the Mollie Maguires who ruled
the region which his railroad traversed,
and had at their mercy, seemingly, all its
millions of destructible property rs we'll
as the lives of officers. Yet he was
right ; and the right triumphed and it
is the great victory among the many vic
tories of his life, and the one which will
give him imperislable fame as it has
been the one which has gained for him the
great confidence Of all the people and
which has greatly helped to make him
the Samson he is today in hi: great
struggle with the powers arrayed against
him.
So, too, il seemed TO he rasllness when
Mr.. Gowen drew his sword against the
supreme court of Pennsylvania and dared
to tell to a committee of Congress that it
was not controlled in its decisions by its
honest judgment of the law; for this
court, evidently, in the legal struggles in
which the Reading company was precip-
tated, would he very likely to have a
chance to catch it by the throat as
it did have and did do, lately,
when it gave, by decision of four
judges to three, vitality to the election
of successor to Mr.. Gowen as presi-
dent, who was voted for by only a third
of the stock in value, held nearly entire
ly by two men, one deranged, one an
imbeciie, and both Englishnlen. To that
court thus denounced by him, Mr.. Cow
en- appealed, and apparently with Il feel
ing of hope, when there was no hope :;
and none would have been felt by a less
sanguine man. And here we have a
curious illustration of the unlimited
hopefulness of Mr.. Gowen, a trait in
his character which is as precious
to his company in its present desperate
strait as it was disastrous to it when it
was floating on the smooth sea of appar-
ent prosperity and with strong winds
that bore tdOwn upon the hidden reefs
against which it sank.
Probably, in the judgment of most
people, it may be rashness now in Mr..
GOwen to pointedly declare that the in
flCence of the Pennsylvania railroad pro-
duced the recent four to three decision
against him in the supreme court. But,
as We look at it, that just depends upon
whether he is correct. His reliance is
upon the people and his way to win
their support is to battle boldly, as
he has always done, for the right.
He need not be afraid Of any supreme
court when he has the people with him.
Then the judges will be cruclfei, but
never he!
And no man i'm all the world stands
to-day, and justly stands, SO strong with
the people as Franklin B. Gowen. He
says he will win his fight if he lives.
And he certainly. will. There will lie
plenty of broken crockery about when
the end comes, but not among the gods
of his household.