Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-18


| itself of the ground that such business
| involves a public franchise, claims the
right TO control it, to practically take
charge of it at any time, and to say how
much. but never how little, it shall yield
its owners. Arailroad enterprise, newly
adventured, is liable to suffer financial
shipwreck from a number of causes.
Some great freebooter like Jay Gould !,
the curse and terror OF the men whose
real capital builds the roads, may wreck
il because it chances to fall in the way OF
his success 1t must encounter the
dangers of competing lines, of drouths
and storms and other moving accidents
by flood aud field - In new and I'M
developed country all estimates of the
volume of future business and profits
must necessarily be largely conjectural.
And above all these, like the shadow of
death, stands the danger of the state s
interference in the management of the
business through persons inexperienced
in its practical operation, and without
direct interest in its results.
Let us suppose the proposition is to
build a road into this undeyeloped terri
tory in the West 1t viii be some years
before the road is completed, and some
other years still before the gradually
growing business will pay operating ex
penses Long before the prospective
profits begin to be realized some wave of
popular prejudice against corporations
and Jay Gould may result in unfriendly
legislation and limitation of rates such as
viii render it as impossible for the in
vestors TO realize any profits as it viii be
for them to take up their road and retire
whole from the business.
1t has been the curse of popular gov
ernments in all ages that the pFejudices
of the masses have been awaited of by
artfuI demagogues as a means for their
own elevation TO power. We, that are
poor and without capital, have an innate
envy and jealousy of those SO fortunate
as to possess it. That is the infirmity of
our human nature. All that we do not
understand relative to the profits and
operation of capital, we are prone TO con-
strue most strongly against it. The sight
of Il negro car porter i'll nice uniform
with brass buttons fills us unutterably
full of belief that the owners of that
railroad must be reaping fabulous profits,
or such things could not be. And upon
such evidence alone there are, alas,
thousands of men ready TO at once de-
mand law requiring these owners to
surrender a part Of these cOnjectured
profits; and there are demagogues ready
TO voice this demand, 10 fan these preju-
dices Of ours into yet fiercer flame, to cry
on the dogs of war and
lead the onslaught of communistic
pillage Danton, Marat and Camille
Desmoulins Numbered against the aristo-
Gratis and reused the passions of the pop
ulace TO such ungoyernable fury that
they st6rmed the bastile, sacked the
Tuilleries and precipitated the bloody
horrors of the French revolution. The
wrecking and sackmg instigated by the
more modern tribunes of the people,
though different in character, is not less
destructive to the civic interests of those
whose passions and prejudices are thus
utilized 10 their own discontinue
We are told that the idle ,corpulent stom-
ach does not work and contributes moth
ing to the support of the body, but con-
sumes all that we, the members, make.
We believe it; we repeat history by de-
nying sustenance to the stomach, and we
suffer again these consequences that are
the inevitable results of folly and pas
sion We are infamed with the Oft
repeated recital of the muniffcent gener-
ositY of the state to the railroads in the
grant of lands to them As a
matter of fact and business, the value of
these grants, so far as the state is enti-
tied to credit therefor, is the market
value of the land certificates the day they
We're granted OF issued, often not exceed
ing $40 to $50 per certificate or section.
The roads that sold their land scrip realized
the market price and no more. The roads
that have incurred the labor and expense
of locating their scrip have paid taxes on
the lands and enhanced their value by
the extension of their lines, are entitled
TO the credit Of the increased value, not
the state. The Texas and Pacific is one
of the oldest roads in the state, and has
received perhaps as large an amount of
lands as any other. Some four years since
the officials in charge of its land depart
ment here informed the writer that up TO
that date the road had not received from
the sale of its lands sufficient to reimburse
the actual expenses incurred in behalf of
the lands in their survey and patenting,
the payment of taxes and the expenses of
the road's land department in
the management, advertisement
and sale of the lands. A branch land
office of that company, second only TO
its main office, is located in this county,
and It's operations and sales confirm the
and the further belief that
tHeFe has Deeu Slice Inen, no material
change in the relation of land receipts to
the land expenses. 1t would appear then
that the state 5 munificent donation of
land to that company has not served TO
pull a single pound of freight single |
mile; but on The contrary that the COM
pany has, on account of these lands, |
about half million of dol |
ars to the benefit of the state school |
fund, in the expenses incurred by it in |
.he survey of the alternate school sec |
ions. Yea, Mark Anthony, and was it |
lot thus that Cesar drought home |
many captives whose ransom did the |
general Golfers filI?'' It is true that |
5hese lands will some day yield con- |
siderable sum to their owners, but that |
sum will, in its far greater part, repre- !
sent the expenses and labors of the roads |
n attaining it.
The profits of our Texas railroads are I
ret principally in future They are just
low engaged in the pleasing task of pay
ng taxes on properties that are TO yield |
'evenues in the future when the volume
# business shall be greater and when
heir western lands can be sold at hand
ome prices GIN the year of jubilee.
The Texas and Pacific, for instance, has