The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1883-11-01
TuR Goodrich TranSno,

There was not less obliging transporta-
ton company ever carried a pound of
freight or passenger than this same
Goodrich Transportation Company before
the road was built. The understrappers,
waiter boys, and porters We'd with each
other in offering insults to passengers
whose complaints would not be needed
by the higher officials. Not person
who was only an occasional traveller, ever
took passage on Goodrich boat before
1873, who did not suffer some indignity
from the whiffets who delighted to show
their authority.
But railroad competition changed this
and now the late action of the railroad
company has made the Goodrich line the
favorte. The stockholders of the rail-
road company from the very first have
acted in defiance of that public for whose
convenience such public highways are
constructed and through whose sufferance
they are allowed to exist. Railroad
companies have no power not derived
from the people. But the railroad COM
pany took circuitous route TO Appleton
from Manitowoc, through country so
rough as to make a good road impossible.
The road is winding, subjected to wash
outs, to drifts and many other hindrances
to rapid and secure transit. There was
no business on the route to warrant the
detour. But the company had purchased
property at Ledyard and public rights
were sacrificed that that property might
be made valuable. It was the darling
child of the company and every place
along the line had to be shorn of some
of its rights to make rich dover for
this pet of the corporation. Manitowoc
County gave one-quarter of a million
dollars for the road. The railroad COM
pany allowed it to be understood, nay
promised, that the railroad shops should
be located here. They even excepted
as bonus from public spirited citizen
of this place, land on which the shops
were built. But the spoiled child of the
road pleaded for more nourishment and
it was given the railroad shops.
SOME people have strange ideas of the
motives which influence newspapers and
see nothing but selfish purpose or re-
venge in candid criticism. The articles
in The Pilot relating to the railroad,
though warmly commended, have given
rise to the inquiry, "What has the COM
pany done to make you angry9" ''Re-
voked your pass?" The Pilot never yet
attacked anything or anyone from per-
sonal motives. When put on the defen-
sive it puts its blows where they will do
its adversary the most harm. 1t cher
ishes the interests of Manitowoc and
anything inimical to these interests re-
ceives the treatment which that enmity
has reason to expect. The Pilot does
not look upon an annual pass as bride,
and it certainly has too high an opinion
of the officers of the road to believe they
so consider it. For the information of
the curious iU may not be amiss to state,
the pass has not been revoked although
this may be accompanied by the addi-
tional information that it's none of their
business. And further that The Pilot
has no individual complaint to make
against the road, nothing further than
the complaint that is general. The feel
ing against the road is strong, and it is
general. Is it not the duty of a news
paper whose interests are here, to voice
these complaints? A newspaper has
of petty, local events; the weak, mind
destroying, gossip like function of pam
dering to idle curiosity. The paper is
the voice of the people, and when their
rights are invaded it is the duty of the
newspaper to protest.
The publishers of The Pilot have re-
ceived courtesies from the officers of the
Lake Shore Il Western equal to, if not
greater than, any received by the pub
fishers of any other paper on the line.
There was an additional reason for 81
lence, if silence was proper, and that is
personal friendship. But these things do
notout weigh the sense of wrong done the
community. Are you answered now, oh
searchers for knowledge that concerns
you not Can you become reconciled
TO the idea that newspapers can be hon.
est and fearless and finch not from do
ing plain duty
To be transformed from one national