The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-06-29
"RAILRoAD BATTING"

Both the Los Angeles Express and the
Los Angeles Herald under this ex-
pressive title, refer lengthily to the silly
habit of scolding the railroads, into
which a certain class in California ap-
pears to have fallen. The custom re-
calls that of the fellow who, when any
thing went wrong in his affairs, wore out
his passion by lashing the trees upon his
estate. Nine-tenths of the growing and
scolding directed against transportation
interests in this State is more than silly,
it bespeaks ignorance of the real causes
of commercial depression and of the true
reason for the departure of metropolitan
trade.
The Herald says that this scolding and
batting as manifest in the newspapers sis
improbable and indefensible." The En-
press adds:
Had our contemporary gone step further.
and added that political parties when in want
OF an issue are given to the same habit of rail-
road batting" through their platforms and
campaign speakers, it would not have over
stepped the truth.
1t certainly is true that when local DO
litical issues narrow to such incense
quence that the blood cannot be stirred
by them, the attempt is frequently made
to quicken the public pulse by assailing
railroad carriers. and charging all ills
felt by communities to their account.
Nothing is easier than to attempt to in
augurate an anti-railroad campaign; it is a
task of avery different character to main
tain it. n or is it at all difficult for a DO
litical convention to resolve that it is
absolutely essential to the promotion
of the commercial interests of California
that competing railroad shall be intro
duced within her borders" But lust
what, as the Express puts it, this has to
do with political platform sensible peo-
pie fail to discover. Railroads are not
built by political revolutions; CONNER
cial distress is not relieved by the voicing
of political clap-trap.
The RECoRD-UNIoN has pointed out
very clearly what the proper method is
to secure the building of a competing
railway. 1t is easier far than the engage
ment of traffic associations with political
demagogues to bait existing roads and
badger invested capital until it becomes
weary of well-doing. 1t is so simple, in
deed, that all it calls for is the release OF
San Francisco's boarded capital into
channels of outside activity. A compel
foundations than resolutions and paper,
1t calls for investment, for the exercise OF
capital for the stimulation of interior in
dustries, the bringing of lands into the
higher states of productivity by subdi-
vision, and the general encouragement
that San Francisco capital can give by
recognition of interior advantages and
industrial and developing schemes.
The recent rational manifestation in
San Francisco, indicating that there has
at last been an awakening upon this sub
ject, is of infinitely more importance tc
the State, and gives greater assurance O.
a competing road being constructed and
interior resources further developed by
the activity OF unshackeled San Fran
cisco capital, than ten thousand resolu-
tons passed by as many political con-
ventions.
Railroad batting will not encourage
outside capital to invest in California
development through the agency of rail
way. building. Other people viii not
build railroads for us. with the apparent
certainty that they will be cursed for their
pains and told that they are too ignorant
of the laws OF transportation, or too in
sensible to honesty of purpose, to deal
fairly with people upon whose pros
perity their own must be dependent.
The Express puts it thus: IF San
Francisco wants another transcontinental
railroad it must go ahead and build it.
10 orc is lolding it, ana i has pisuty o.