The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-01-01
LEGAL DELAYS AND REMOVALS
SHOULD NOT DENY DURHAM
A DECENT DEPOT.

We gladly give space to long COM
munication from Mr.. Fabius Fl. Busbee
explaining his position and the position
of the Southern Railway in it's refusal
to give Durham a decent depot. AS to
any differences between the Southern or
any other railway this paper has moth
ing to do and only insists that the long
drawn-out litigation, commenced
dozen years ago, allowed to lapse into
innocuous desuetude, and then reinstated
IN THE FEDERAL COURT (the South
ern always insults the State authorities
by rushing into the Federal courts where
it has special friends and beneficiaries
on the bench, should not be permitted
to deny fit depot accommodations to
Durham. The SO year midnight lease,
which robs the State annually of $780,,
900 to $500, 900 it ought to have, is relied
upon by Mr.. Busbee to perpetrate an
other wrong in depriving Durham of
public thoroughfare it has uninterrupted
ly used ever since it was mere railroad
crossing. Haven't the taxpayers suffer-
ed enough from that midnight lease with
out it being stretched to cover the South
of building a depot in Durham? Ac-
cording to Mr.. Busbee, the litigation has
been allowed to lie dormant for ten
years. All this time, Durham people
have been denied depot accommodations.
If they could let it lie dormant during
the past ten years (have they been wait
ing to get more ex-attorneys on the Fed
eral bench?), why may they not let it go
into innocuous desuetude another decade,
thus further postponing the just demand
of the people of Durham?
The people Of Durham have offered to
give a quit claim to enough of Peabody
street upon which union depot can be
erected, thus protecting the Southern
Railway if it loses the case in the Fed
eral courts. That leaves it without any
excuse for it's continued refusal to pay
it's third (the Norfolk and Western
and the Seaboard both agree to pay their
pro rata part of the cost to build
modern depot. What is the real secret
of the Southern's refusal to join hands
to build the union depot? 1t wishes to
play the hog and keep the other railroads
out of the heart of Durham. That is all
there is in it. For a quarter of CEN
fury and more the North Carolina Rail-
road and it's lesses acquiesced in the con-
version Of it's now claimed two hundred
feet strip through Durham as Peabody
street. 1t was granted only as right
of way, not to dispose of it for profit,
OF to use it, like a dog in the manager,
to retard Durham's growth and keep out
any other railroad. That is the meat in
the cocoanut. The people of Durham.
after thirty years quiet possession of the
street, will not surrender it to the South
ern Railway, which wishes to use it sole
ly to drive out other railroads from
access to Durham's manufacturing estab-
lishments and great business concerns. 1t
wishes to bottle up the town and to own
the only method of ingress and egress'
It wishes to play the hog-and in order
to enable it to do so under cover it has
Reconstructed, in the Federal courts, an old
abandoned claim to a public street in
Durham, and is using that litigation to
deny Durham decent depot.
The Durham Chamber Of Commerce
can get an order from the Corporation
Commission compelling the erection of
the depot whenever it wishes to do So
and it can be demonstrated that the
revenue received will be sulncient to
justify it,