The Aberdeen examiner., 1883-06-07
The Rail stoIss as builders and
Protectors Of EeyeeS.
EQUAL RIGHTS AND EQUAL BURDENS
FOR THE OLD AND THE NEW.

PMS 10 the warren county bluffs, or
asking of the State and Government
the privilege of laying track upon the
very crest of the levee itself, must be
the main reliance of the valley farm
ers for protection from the dreaded
overaows. The capital that is being
invested in these lines is as deeply
interested in Tending the surplus
waters of the Mississippi from the
bottom lands as the riparian proprie-
tors themselves, for the planters and
the new roads are mutually dependent
upon each other for prosperity.
This being the case, it is all i'm
portant that the rail roads shall re-
gard the levees as their out-posts or
picket lines, and that their first thought
in times of freshet shall be the pro-
lection and Strengthening of the river
line of ramparts. The immediate
assembling of thousand skilled la
borers, thoroughly disciplined, and
under the orders and direction of
competent engineers and foremen,s
matter of easy accomplishment by a
great rail road company, while it
would tax all the powers and resourc-
es of a planting community to the
utmost to do the same thing in
week or fortnight, and we all know
that in fighting for the preservation
of levee against the angry forces of
nature promptness in massing men
and material at the point of danger,
is half the battle.
These rail road owners will ne, er
wait for break in the levees ten Or
twenty miles to the West of them,
before assembling their men and be-
ginning defensive operations; and
their heavy embankments in the rear
of the coast line works, will ere long
be connected with the river levees by
many huge east and west lines, some
of them representing branch roads
and cross roads, and some of them
continuous lines of private food de-
fences, that in the event of any future
break in the levees along the coast
will serve to localize the overflow
and thus reduce the general damage
immensely.
In addition to this the overs of
these rail roads will naturally become
the most stalwart advocates of gov
ernment aid in building and main
tanning the levees, for in just the
proportion that Congress assumes
this labor and responsibility, the rail
road owners as well as the riparian
proprietors-men of common destiny
and nterests-will be released from
the burden.
Now if we are right in our premi-
ses and argument, how very impor-
tantant it Is that rail road building in
the low lands of Mississippi should
receive all the fostering care and
encouragement from the State that it
is possible for us to give them in the
way of kindly legislation; and how
harsh and suicidal it would
be to leap upon the shoulders of these
nineteenth century mound-builders,"
with Legislative shackles and guages
as soon as they have manifested their
power and willingness to serve US.
1t may be said in reply to this, that
most of the new roads chartered in
1882, were guaranteed immunity
from Legislative interference within
certain agreed bounds, by their char
ter contracts. We all know that this
is the case and the real friends of
progress rejoice in their good fortune;
but shall Mississippi 60 to record
with two sets of laws, one granting
immunity, as it were, from coercive
Legislation to all the roads that came
to her on the swell-tide of prosperity,
and the other imposing ignorant and
perhaps biggotted supervision over
the few old roads that shared all the
ills, and wreck, and ruin of war and
mongrel rule, with her people?
We hold that she may constitu-
tionally surrender whatever of her
prerogatives she chooses in the way
of exemption to this, that, or the
other rail road, but when it comes to
burdens she must lay them
with even hand upon all her children,
whether corporations or individuals.
Otherwise, in view of the charter
contracts she made last year, the en-
actment of law providing for "Leg-
islative Supervision" that does not
to the old roads the rights of
fixed '1naximum rates" granted on
their own petition to the new ones,
would be to do that most damnable
and outrageous of all things in Re-
public, CREATE A PRIVILEGED CLASS.
An Dac Moinae iowa last ,vaak a |