The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1884-06-07


seem so urgent as TO warrant such dis
position of the internal Improvement
Funds.
In the act creating the Board of Inter
nal Improvement Coz nmissiOners, section
3 reads as follows ".All bonds issued by
any railroad company under the provi-
sions of this act, etc, shall contain a Ger
tificate on the part of be Trustees of the
Internal Improvement Fund, that said
bonds are issued agreea,bly to the provi-
sions of this act, and that the Internal
Improvement Fund for which thew are
Trustees, is pledged to pay the interest as
it may become due on said bonds. All
bonds issued by any railroad company
under the provisions of this act shall be
first lien and mortgage on the road-bed,
iron equipment, workshops, depots and
franchise, etc, and upon the failure Of
any railroad company accepting the pro
visions of this act to provide the interest
as herein provided, on the bonds issued by
said company, and the sum of one per
centum per annum, as sinking fund.
etc, under certain conditions it becomes
the duty said Board to seize upon and sell
said road and deposit the proceeds in the
treasury of the Internal Improvement
Fund, for the benefit of said Fund and
the bond holders"
Now it will be seen that the Internal
Improvement Fund becomes responsible
for the payment of the interest Only Of
such bonds until they finally become due.
and should the sinking fund be sufficient
the bonds may be paid, otherwise not
This is plain to me. At common law a
mortgage was a conveyance, with de-
feasance, and gave the mortgage a pres
eut right Of possession uoDn it even before
the conditions were broken, for good
cause shown before a court in equity sit
ting the holder of a mortgage might
enter a suit Of ejectment or apply for The
appointment of a receiver, and if the con-
ditions were broken the conveyance be
came absolute. The statute gives the
mortgage the right to the possession
even after the money is due, and confines
the mortgagor to an ordinary action and
sale of the mOrtgaged property, thus neg
ativing any idea of title in the mortgage.
1t is a mere security, creatinga lien upon
| the property in accordance with the con-
ditiOns in the mortgage, and then not
| until after the conditions have been
| broken.
| The most, therefore, which could eair-
| ly be claimed for the alleged German
| bondholders mortgage" on the Internal
Improvement Fund. under the best cir
! cumstances. is that it created lien not p
! jus adj rem; simply charge of no greater
force than that of an ordinary Judgment
| But to what did this lein attach? To any
more than the railroad company's inter
est in the property in the road and the
lands held by it under the grant from the
State Did it seize upon the cOntirgent
| interest of the State aswel as that of the
company? Certainly it did not These
roads were built by aid of the Internal
Improvement Funds, and oil the lands
! held by the companies. and undjspOsed of
at the time of the breaking Of conditions
IN trust, belonged to the State and should
have reverted into the hands of the Inter
nal Improvement Trustees, and had this
been done large property would have
been saved and the DisstOn sale have
been made unnecessary.
The United States Congress granted
only alternate sections, for twenty miles
each side of the Cantre Ot the tracks. to
the railroads, at the same time the cost
of government lands within the railroad
limits was increasing to $3.50 per acre
as the lowest price, by thus doing the
government did not loose anything but
was on the whole a gamer.
1 am not disposed to quarrel with the
News as to what IAN educated man.
might say regarding spectators. Meth
er do | wish to dispute with you as towho
are educated men, [ only wish we were
all better educated and better informed.
yet think until l am better informed |
shall hold strictly to my definition of a
foreign Spectator, whether he deals in
railroads, lands, orange groves, or what
not, and lives beyond the borders of this
State, this last fact that he is not citi-
zen shows him to be investing in property
as venture hoping to increase his profits
and therefore a speculator.
As to the policy of the Democratic
party in this matter of railroad grants
to roads and canals, the party has done
exactly what you charge the Republicans
with doing. One of the good things done
by the Democrats in Congress was to or
pose the granting of lands to railroads,
yet if the policy is just and wise in the
west when properly guarded, the same
course pursued here should be considered
equally wise, and l should find no fault
with the law as it stood giving all sec.
| tiOns equal benefits in the Internal I'm.