The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-02-13
ARour THAT Ell PAso ROAD.

There appears TO be Misrepresentation,
or want of understanding, as to the status
of the proposed Wichita and Ell Paso rail
way which can be cleared up in very few
words:
1t is a Wichita enterprise, chartered
under the directions of the Board of Trade,
and solely in the interest of Wichita,
which charter and its franchises will be
turned over to the company who propose
to build it. There viii be nothing to pay
if they fail. There is not a cent in it to
any Individual member of the Board of
Trade, or to any other citizen. The sole
idea of the enterprise is another line into
tie territory, and a line which is to be
operated independently as a local road,
with its starting point at Wichita. The
terminus, the offices and shops of the road
will be located in Wichita, and perma-
nently. All that has been abundantly and
irrevocably fixed and secured. The charter
will not and cannot be turned over on any
other conditions. AS local road, or
operated as it will be, locally with Wichita
as its terminal point, it will be worth more
TO our local trade than any three of the
trunk lines passing through the city.
As to the wisdom of voting the aid we
think there can be no question. At least
the EAGLE would not so heartily endorse
it as it has done if there were, in the esti-
nation of its editor, the shadow of doubt.
1t is unquestionably in the interest of
every property holder and dealer in the
city. If any who are not property owners
and tax payers vote against it, they will do
it from some Interior motive, disconnected
with any present or future interest for the
welfare of the city. If they want to injure
their neighbors who are bearing the bur
thens, they can do so under the law, but
they cam OF be morally right in doing so.
Two-thirds as much as the whole amount
Of the bonds asked has been subscribed,
within the past few weeks, by less than
two hundred citizens; subscribed in prop
erty and cash down, to secure an elevator.
These bonds will run thirty years, and fall
on all property alike.
But it will be no additional burthen, as
every business man well understands, and
which can be demonstrated in the fewest
words: The Wichita and Western pays
into the county one hundred and forty
eight dollars per mile per annum taxes, or
for its twenty-seven miles in the county
s. 996 per year. See treasurer's books.
The Wichita and FL Paso will be just
such a road and it will run thirty miles in
the county, which at one hundred and
forty-eight dollars taxes per mile would
be four thousand four hundred and forty
dollars per year that the road would have
to pay into the county treasury. The
bonds which bear per cent will cost just
81, 800 per annum, or $3.50 less than the
amount received from the thirty miles of
road in the way of taxes or the interest
paid will be but about one-third what the
road pays in taxes. The interest on which
last amount named will more than redeem
the bonds at the end of thirty years, But
all this of course is understood by the prop
erty holders and tax payers of the city.
As for additional labor in building
depots, shops, etc, and as for the money
necessarily brought in for construction,
these interest the contractor and laborer
Just as much as they do the tradesman
and tax payer.
But in any and ali events this is no time
to set around to whine and kick and howl
and prophesy evil only, and then TO groan
and agonize some more. With the state
administration dead set against us, and
beating US out of our revenus, and with
the senate trying to pass bill to Kill our
live stock market and packing interests,
with the house determined to force our
grain into Missouri elevators, Wichita
will be compelled evidently to take care of
herself. and we had better be about it, and
one of the things to do is to start that new
road FL Pasowards
But even if this were not all So and that
| facts were not facts, that experience and
logic were less than fancy, and that brains
were but muddled mud, with Wichita on
top of the highest wave or down in the
deeps of the deepest soup, there can only
be the better and not the worse come OF
any and all efforts to help ourselves, by
doing for ourselves and saving ourselves
in spite of everybody else.
ACAsE OF EXeUsABLE IMPUDENCE
BELLE PLANE, Feb II, 1891.