El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-11-12
The City Front and the Railroads

New Orleans Picayune.
The need of the Illinois Central rail-
road for trackwsy to and from its
Stuyvesant docks, after the outlet
through Louisiana avenue shall be
closed up, is pressing upon the rail
way company and upon the city. The
subject IL one that must be taken up
aud treated wisely to the joint benefit
of the city and of the company.
The motion which has been put for
ward as a means of bringing pressure
upon the city to sccede to the desires
OF the railway, to the effect
that the railway is of vastly more i'm
portance to New Orleans than is New
Orleans to the railway, is too puerile
and absurd to.be considered, and it has
had an effect entirely different frem
what was intended by it. The railroad
people made their terminus here be-
cause here they enjoyed facilities OF la
Dor of deep water for shipping, and all
the benefits which the business OF q
great,city can give them. The city is at
least as important to the railway as the
railway to the oity, and any other con-
olusion disparaging the attractions OF
New Orleans for the railway will not
be entertained for Q moment by those
who have any intelligent understand
ing of commerce.
But, of course, this means that the
Illinois Central, and all other railways
making terminals here, shall not be
fenced out from the river side, but
must have every necessary facility for
on their business The Plea
yune lays this down as q maxim, con-
formity with which is absolutely re-
quisite to the proper welfare and pros
perity of this city. To depart from it
would be the very worst policy posi-
BILE.
But the city, in dispensing benefits
to commerce, must bear in mind that
its bounty must not be exhausted in
giving everything to q few, and leav-
ing nothing to those that are to come
whether next year or the
next century. The New Orleans city
from the first advent of
railways into the city's limits, has not
failed to adopt q most unwise and
short-sig hted policy. No provision was
made for the city's growth, or for any
increase in the umbers of the rail-
roads seeking terminal facilities here
Every railway needed to get to the
water front, and each railroad in turn,
as they came at considerable intervals
apart, was given about all the river
side there was, the first getting all,
and those coming afterwards getting
what had been added to the city in the
intervals. But for the remarkable ex-
pansion of the city up and down the
river, there would not be foot of the
water front unmonopolized by rail-
way, and as the disposition seems still
to exist to carry on that blind and fool
ish policy, the city will have to grow
many miles along the river bank to
accommodate the railroads that will
demand commercial accommodations
here.
Apparently, the only remedy in sight
is for the city to appropriate such lands
and buildings along the river front as
may be required to make room for
some twenty or more trackways, and
the privileges or franchises for the use
of such trackways be leased to the
railways for stated terms, the fran
chises to be let according to the re-
quirements of the city charter, and
payment to be made for them in
money, and not in work or alleged i'm
provements. The franchises are to
be so guarded that they can be secured
by the city at the expiration of their
terms, the city paying merely the cost
OF the tracks, no account
to be taken of their value to the
that have enjoyed them.
The money received from the fran
chises should at least recoup the city