Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1885-08-29
TELL THE TRUTH.


truth about the freight determinations
against ST. Louis will do that city harm.
There is much virtue i'll the simple
truth. "Truth is tough. 1t will not
break, like u bubble, at a touch; 1t Will
be round and full at evening"" 1t is
only pretense and falsehood that are to
be feared in life. If there is disease the
honest physician makes a true diagnosis
of the case in order to apply the proper
remedy.
The lntelligencer is very friendly TO
St. Louis. 1t is the metropolis, not
only of Missouri but of the Mississippi
valley. 1t is a solid, substantial, fair
dealing city. The representations OF
its merchants may be relied upon. Its
manufactures are honest and are sold
by honest weights. 1t is a Missouri
city, interested in Missouri's growth,
concerned with Missouri's interests, and
paying a very large part of Missouri's
taxes. We desire, therefore, to see it
prosper, and so far as in US lies we do
all that we can toward that end, and
have always done SC. But it is a fact,
that for many years st. Louis has been
slow to see her own interests, lax i'll
commercial vigilance, and conserva-
tive to a dangerous degree. These are
busy times. They are times when giant
Instruments are used to accomplish re-
suits, and men and places who, like
Micawber, wait for things to turn up
of themselves are almost certain to be
distanced in the race.
We cannot pause here to mention the
various systems of railway with which
Chicago has cut off St. Louis trade
even here in Missouri. The maps show
them all too plainly, and yet what does
St. Louis do to defend herself or TO at
tack her wide-awake contemporaries?
The Post-Dispatch revelations are at
least something. Let st. Louis awake
to a full realization of their meaning,
and then let her make her alliances Of
fensive and defensive. If MI. Gould
is cutting her throat, make arrange
ments to cut his. He is not the sort of
person that one can fight with fine
phrases. He is simply a mathematical
machine. There is only one way to get
concessions out of him. and that is to
compel his figures to show that it will
pay him best to treat St. Louis fairly,
and it can be done Just as easy as roll
ling of Il log
There are railroad interests, to-day,
approaching St. Louis from the east,
that could be utilized for breaking up
all present combinations, if they could
only find a road across Missouri. AT
Kansas City there are similar interests
awaiting the same connection. When
the Intelligencer suggested to the Post.
Dispatch the building of the Short Line
across Missouri it had in contemplation
much more than the local business
through Missouri, though that would
be considerable as the proposed road
would traverse a section whose pro-
~ductiveness is immense. Our idea was
the organization of a grand, trans-con-
%tinental, anti Gould, nti-Chicago COM
bination, which would rebound to the
interest of the entire state OF Missouri.
St. Louis business men and capitalists
are the men to organize this cOmbina-
ton. They are the only ones that can
do it. Kansas City is interested in
keeping Chicago ahead of st, Louis.
st. Louis has the capital, commands the
treights, both ways, necessary to bring
about such an arrangement-one free
from all e%ntangling alliances of pools,
and owned by honest men, simply
striving to earn dividends for bona ffde
stockholders of non watered stock.
The whole railroad system OF the
country to-day is rotten, and is taxing
the people three and four times more
than it should, to pay interest oil mock
property. Let St. Louis organize one
honest railroad management across the
continent and she will reap a benefit
far beyond her most sanguine expecta-
tons. "But," her merchants.w viii say,
"we cannot build such a railroad; we
are not Vanderbilts or Rothschilds."
1t is not necessary. Except the link
across Missouri, that can easily be built
with a little encouragement, the neces-
sary roads are already in existence. 1t
only requires some finesse and finan-
ciering to make them available. Ii is
we'll that the truth is being made known
to st. Louis of how she is being in
jured by determinations against her,
but the pooled roads have her In their
clutches. They are like the turtle that
is said never to let 60 till it thunders,
and the only thunder they can hear is
the thunder of trains running over a
road that they cannot control by a pool.
Any arrangement short of the one here
suggested seems to us temporary and
transient; this n is capable of being
made radical and effective.