Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1892-07-09
CORRESPONDENTS.

CUMBERLAND, Mp, July 5, 1892,
To thp NINTNf TOURNAJ

10 the MINING JOURNAL.
l am ready to take up the gauntlet
thrown down by Republican Miner
in your issue of July =, and to prove
that the following statement is ab5o-
lutely incorrect, as can be shown by
the newspaper files of the county for
the past FIVE years.
knowi also, that never heard a word from
Hon George l.. Wellington for or against the
scheme to rob us of the canal. If he was in
favor of it, he kept it to himself; if he was
opposed to it he opened not his mouth.
Mr.. Wellington has been one of
the most pronounced and powerful
friends of the canal at all times and
seasons. He has done ten things for
the canal to Col. Pearre's one, and he
has spoken one hundred words in
its favor to Col. Pearre's one.
On Aug. y, 1856, there was large
the interest of the canal. There were
some operators present, and | chal-
lenge anyone of them to dispute my
assertions. | was there myself upon
special invitation of my old friend,
Cowden, who helped largely to get up
that meeting. Mayor Shuck presided
with j. Brooke McGann as secretary
The speakers we've J. W. Thomas, &.
l.. Wellington, William Brace and l..
Victor Baughman. Hon. William
Walsh could not be present on account
of sickness, but sent a strong letter
assuring the meeting of his sympathy
with its objects, and his hearty accord
with every effort to maintain the canal
as a waterway.
Mr.. Wellington made telling and
impassioned address on behalf of the
canal. The report in the Daily News
of that meeting quotes him as saying
that ''he was opposed to giving the
canal to any great corporation to make
a railroad of it; :" that he was in favor
of anything that would put the canal
on sure footing,' etc.
Is there any uncertain ring about
that ? But why beat the air? Every
body we'll acquainted with county
affairs knows that Wellington has
always been the staunch friend of the
canal.
Wellington ran for Comptroller in
1889, the year of the great freshet, the
Johnstown year, you remember. The
republican party in its platform that
year took bold ground for the NAM
tenance of the canal, and the following
plank in that platform was written by
Mr.. Wellington, every syllable of it,
and was adopted by the convention
without change:
Resol0ed, That prosperity of a very large
portion of our State and its people Is linked
with the maintenance of the Chesapeake and
IL ,,nl, , tow III
demand that the State government shall not
connive at the sacrifice of the canal to private
interests, but that this great waterway, wreck
ed by political acknowledgement, shall be
given over under long lease or otherwise to
business control, under proper regulation,
and we insist that the Board of Public Works
shall maintain the canal as a waterway from
the coal fields to tldewater.
Wellington carried the canal issue
with him everywhere on the stump in
that campaign, as the reports of his
speeches will show. His presentation
of the interests of the canal was so eff
fectiye that he swept the district by
the unparalleled majority of 2,2O0.
When Col. Pearre was elected State
Senator he was bound to stand on that
platform and bound to fight for the
canal which he should get reasonable
credit for doing. But the man who
saved the canal was not George A.
Pearre. 1t was Judge Richard I'll.
Alvey. Who dare deny it? Despite
the efforts Of the republican Senators,
J. w. Randall, Of Anne Arundel;
Adrian Posey, of Charles; W. d.
Burchinal, of Kent George A. Pearre,
of Allegany; c. E. Coffin, of Prince
George; Washington Wilkinson, of
St. Mary's, and last, but not least,
Edward Stake, the most powerful de-
batter and best equipped man of the
lot, the Washington and Cumberland
lease bill passed the General Assembly
and was approved by Governor Jack
son March 27, 1890.
| will not consume space by review
ing the points of Judge Alvey's able
decisions, affirmed by the Court of APP
peals, but suffice it to say that but for
those decisions the canal would be to-
day in the hands of the Washington
and Cumberland railroad.
In conclusion, therefore, / would
again say that it was Judge Alvey
who saved the canal and not the young
Senator; and, in the second place, it
was George L. Wellington. and not
the young Senator, who committed his
party in the State and district to the
policy of standing by the canal,
TRUTH.