The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-09-06
PROPHETIC CRANKS.

people since believed comes at times 10 OlS-
ordered minds, or by lucky guess, hit pro-
phetically upon an actual national condition,
which they described twenty years in advance
as accurately as it can be described now,
nearly twenty years after its realization. A
Mr.. Whitney, for several years, along after
1850, advocated, through the leading Eastern
papers, or such as would givel him hearing
Cor his cause or from respect to his high
standing in the business world, the project of
building railroad from the Mis-
sissippi to the Pacific by congress
sional grant of alternate sections of
public lands extending certain distance
On each side of the line. The advance of the
soad would bring settlers for its own lands
tnd thus provide the money for the work, and
The settlements would enhance the value Of
the governments remaining land so much as
TO fully compensate it for the railroad grant
At convenient intervals or advantageous loca-
lions towns would spring up and become
cities, and still further advance the value of
the lands granted and the lands retained.
After making this clear demonstration of
The Importance Of his project-and he is the
original author of the Pacific railway system,
to which may be very aptly added: Don't
you forget it"--he began lecturing all over
the country upon it. He was universally
voted Crank yet nobody could dis
pute his conclusions or contest his facts
He lectured here in Masonic Hall once, and
showed by map of the world that the North
American continent was the half way house
between Asia and Europe, and ultimately the
bulk of commerce between the east of Asia
and Europe must pass over this continent,
a Pacific railroad afforded. 'It was all proph-
ecy then; it is all history now" and living
fact. The progress of our transcontinental
lines has followed exactly the track he planned
1or them, the accompanying settlements the
temporary terminations,j the little towns
growing up into cities where the situation
favored it. He could hardly have hit the
fact more directly if he had described it by
bind sight instead of foresight.
The other cases of Cranky" provision is
one that concerned this State only. A good
many of the living residents of Indianapolis
will remember Ex-Governor James Brown
Ray. He was our third Governor, and served
longer in the Office than any man that ever
held it except Governor Joseph A. Wright.
He held it two full terms of three years, under
the old constitution, and nearly one year of
the term Of Governor Hendricks, who resigned
to so to the national Senate Internal i'm
provenent was his hobby In his message of
1896, year after his Inauguration, he said to
the Legislature that we must rely on the con-
struction of roads and canals AS the safest and
most certain State policy, to relieve our
situation, place us among the first States
OF the Union, and change this cry
of hard times into an open acknowledgment
OF contentedness. We must strike at the in
ternal improvement of the State, or form our
minds to remain poor and unacquainted with
each other" The next year he announced
the possession by the State of lands granted
by Congress "for special purposes" of the
full value of one million two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, the Especial purposes"
Of the grant being the Wabash & Erie canal
and the Michigan wagon road from Madison
through indianapolis to Lake Michigan. Again,
in 1929, he renewed his urgency for action
npon system of internal improvement, say
ing cit must be the source of many of the
blessings of civilized life, and to secure its
benefits is duty enjoined upon the Legisla-
ture by the obligations of the social COM
pact
There may be discerned in this last sugges-
ton trace of the exaggeration, which, in
after years, grew into a monomania Up to
1915 or thereabouts Governor Ray, who had
law Office in this city, and owned more or less
-he formerly had owned all-of the square
opposite the courthouse, might be seen al
most any day walking about in deep abstrac-
ton, his head down, his hat frequently carried
IN his hand and held behind his back, his lips
moving as if talking to himself, and known to
everybody in the little town at that time as
the ''old Governor, a little cracked" His
hallucination was prophecy quite as remark
able Tor its clear and accurate perception of
conditions thirty years still in the future as
was Whitney's.
dis plan for State railroad system pro-
yided, in the first place, for common depot
the first suggestion Of our Union Depot
which was to be located on his ground on the
aorth sida Of Wachin oto. aI-~L AZ >.