The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-07-25

street bridge. This is the bed of an ancient
swamp. in which 1t would be necessary to
drive priv piles thirty feet to get solid founda-
shops proposed on this location would cost
100000, while the whole cost of the build
ings a. ana 90 their he equipment would much ex,
furnish steady employment the year round
Tor !, 500 men, whose aggregate annual wages
WOULD amount to nearly 100000. 1t is of vast
this great addition to it's industries Upon
this point there Is no difference Of opinion
among our citizens. score Of places on the
Great Northern lines are urgent candidates
Tor the location Of the new shops.
The movement to secure them for St. Paul
originated with the mechanics in the present
Great Northern shops, who usually own their
own homes IN the city and would be sub
5ected to great loss and Inconvenience If, in
order to Keep their Jobs, they had to remove
to some other locality. Since then the bust
ness and labor organizations of the city have
taken the matter up. Several representative
committees have called upon Mr.. Hill to as
certain his views on the subject. Their con-
cusion from these conferences with him was
thAt quite irrespective of the question of
the shops-vital.y important as that is-it
was an opportune time for the city authorities
TO adopt more friendly and considerable at
titudc toward the Great Northern than they
have been pursuing for several years. All
citizens, OF St. Paul Of ordinary intelligence
know that to the Great Nor. hern more than
70 any other fundamentally the city owes
what measure of commercial prosperity it
enjoys. But more than any other ass the
merchants of ST. Paul know how deeply the
city Is indebted to Mr. Hill for its strong
position as a commercial center Yet in spite
OF this well known fact, the small politicians
IN the city government have thought they
could not do more popular thing than to
take hostile attitude toward the Great
Northorn and to persist in a series of meas
VI ures detrimental at once to its interests and
to the Interests of the city.
The Broadway bridge is a case in point
rms bridge project was never anything but
an insane real estate speculation. Tie bridge
was demanded by no business conside ration
II was as useless as fifth wheel to a wagon
IL was preposterous, a shameful, criminal
vase CT ICplic money It's col s -ru tioa would
add largely TO the public debt, without do ng
ANYBODY a farthing of benefit, while it woul1
greatly ln1ure the properties of the Great
Northern railroad. Whatever may be the facts
ABOUT the technical existence CT a Broadway
street south of Third in some antediuyIsn
age, no such street has existed in fact for
ma many years. It has been long occupied BY
the tracks of all the numerous lines entering
the union depot. 1t is utterly useless as a
street and should have been vacated years
ago 1t should be vacated at once and iegis-
lation obtained at the earliest po=s be mo-
ment repeating the act authorizing the CO l.
struct.on of the Broadway bridge or the fur
iner issue OF bonds for that purpose, aTd tn I'm
ing INTO tLe treasury any tuldS now held
there on this account. That is someth ng
wnich is demanded by the public interests
wholly aside from its bearing Oh the que
ton OF the shops. And certainly so long as
the city holds this club over Mr.. Hills head
re is not likely to consider their Location a :.
st. Paul.
Eighteen years ago an agreement was en-
tered into between the city and certain rail-
way companies. including the Great Northern
exempt1ng those companies from the cost Of
repairing bridges which they had built for
the city over their lines. 7 his agree ment has
been continuously adhered to by tie city dur
ing all this period until recently when it has
refused to abide by ton the ound not
that no such agreement was enter ed into Il.
that it lacked the proper forms of technical
procedure. and that the city had no legal
power to tnter into any such agree men'. This
bridge question is a highly important ons
and should be settled upon some fair and
reasonable basis. Otherwise it viii necessa-
rily be constant source of mutual irrita .isa
and vexatious litigation.
There are no streets now laid out even on
the map over the forty-fve acres owned by
the Great Northern on which Mr. Hill is
thir king of locating his shops. There are no
streets, therefore, to be vacated en- that
tract. But Mr.. Hill will not build his shoos
there without a binding agree ment on III,
part of the city that it will run no Streets
and build no bridges there W -thout the con-
sent of the Great Northern.
If the wishes Of the people of st. Paul a-e
consulted the city authorities will take prom I
action to secure a friendly settr5 ment of the
differences between the city and the Great
Northern. Mr.. Hill asks no hing but fair
play. He asks no Decuniary return for tie
great benefits which the city reaps from the
Great Northern. But he has soma right to
expect, in the treatment by the city of his
road, some evidence of its grateful apprec. "a
ton CT what he has done for 1t.