Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-10-24
MINING JOURNAL.
FROsTBURG MD, OCTOBER u. 1891.
What Might Have Been.

fellow-citizen, T. f. McCardcll. writes
an entertaining letter from Bessemer,
Ala.
Entertaining, we repeat, because its
reminiscent tenor recalls with great
distinctness an era of undeniable
error.
Yet the JOURNAL is not prepared to
admit, nor even to believe that the
theft of The canal was contemplated or
even conceived until after The food of
1889. This event threw thoughtful
crowd out Of iob-a crowd so long in
the easy employment and good pay of
the canal that they very accurately
deemed themselves good for liveli-
hood nowhere else.
Hence, they wanted the canal re-
stored. They reported the damages,
as ascertained by their own couriers
and experts sent up and down by them
selves, as not irreparable, and they
made applications to the coal com
panles for money to rebIild. They
did all that employees could do to re-
store statn qno antedil"rjaH.
Moreover, they resented most siren
uously all limitations of substituting
railroad for the SituS Of the canal
There is no sequence, therefore, in
the wonderful change which came
over 1.-THE spirit of their dreams in
the early months of 1890, and their
triumphs of $3.50 The crowd is
the same, but it has been re-baptized.
1t is no longer the Chesapea and Ohio
canal ring, but the West Virginia
Central railroad ring, and its objects
have been transmogriied accordingly.
The former never mismanaged the
canal with any purpose of destroying
it. They were never so inconsiderate
of their current or future welfare as
to kill the goose which laid the gold
ell eggs" The old fowl was kept
picked to the bone, but never killed.
Just what the result would have
been had the canal passed in 1876 into
other political hands is Understandable.
Political arrangements of business
concerns are about the same the
country over, except that those are
worst where there is least direct
accountability to the people.
Had Mr.. McCardell's proposed
regime not been outvoted in the mining
region, trivial as such a result would
have been accounted IN tie .State, the
flood would have come on Just the
same; no a. p. German would have
risen, and the Force bill, so greatly
feared last fall by Mr. McCardell,
would now be alive and kicking the
stutfing out of the true Alabama as
well as the counterfeit MARYLAND de
mocracy.
There is no 81 told you so" about
these contingencies. They are pos
sibilities which haunt the Sequelr of
canal regeneration any time between
1873 and 1889. They are only frac-
ton of THE Great What Might Have
Been" that has baffied the speculative
historian in all ages. They illustrate
anew that some good has come ont of
Nazareth and that there is no allotment
of Providence, however disastrous.
but brings with it some compensation.
From Il democratic standpoint,
therefore, German, who rose to nation
al eminence on the ruins of tie canal,
thus saved Alabama fl ON the rule of
force. Maryland may be robbed of
her canal, but Alabama will be free
Is this deduction farbrought? Not
Il bit Of it. How else could German
have risen ? And what other man
could have outgeneraled a ma jority in
the Senate, except one who had done
it all his political life before in the
lower arenas
Whether the JOURNAL vainly argues
for the maintenance of the canal as a
Maryland institution is Il question to
be determined later on. Whether it
is ''too late-everlastingly too late :"
is also open to inquiry.
But it is to be feared that Mr.. Nc
Cardell, in his far-oH Alabama home.
has no authority to commit Dr. Price
and Archie Wilson to any position
touching the future of the canal. A
vast ma ority here differ with Mr.
McCardell's reading of what will be
expected of them in the House of
Delegates, and not Il few democrats
will take Mr.. McCardell's pledges for
them rs necessarily in line with his
rather precipitate and wholesale en-
dorsement of the legislative portion of
the ticket in the Cumberland Times
few days after the convention a very
surprising ratification to many people
- to none more than the nor anti-canal
people. Can such things be-" asked
they, and over come lis like sum
mercloud -
AS to the purpose of the republican
Legislative ticket, let that be what it
may, it is certain the West Virginia
Central railroad people will leave no
stone unturned to elect the democratic
nominees for the House of Delegates.