The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1903-08-27
THE SEABOARD DEAL.
1t Will be Tightly Factor in South
ern Development.

! The Baltimore Manufacturers Re
cord makes this comment on the big
railroad deal involving the SeabOard
Air Line, announced last week:
! The magnificent courage and abil-
ity OF John SHELTON Williams and
J. W. MiddendOrf, which have enabled
them during the last few years to
weld Il lot of disjonted roads into
the compact system known as the
SeabOard Air Line, find, so far as the
South is concerned, n fitting climax
in the deal which makes the SeabOard
a part OF the great Rock Island and
Frisco system. The work of Messrs.
Williams and Middendorf has been a
great power for the good of the
South, and it will be gratifying to
know that their connection with the
Seaboard, and thus with the rail
road interests OF the South is not
changed. In fact, the combination
brings to the SeabOard financial and
ira tfic connections which must have
a very important bearing on the
upbuilding of the South With the
wide ramifcatiOns in railroad and
| financial circles OF the Rock island
group of capitalists n new influence
| is brought into Southern develop
ment which will necessarily have a
stimulating effect upon the trend of
capital Southward, the industrialup-
building< of this section, and the
| movement of Western freight through
Southern ports With this cOmbina-
ton added to the movement of the
GouldS in the Southwest and tending
to the Central South, and the Illinois
Centrals plans for getting into the
Alabama coal and iron regions. the
South becomes the theater of the
greatest railroad activities of the
day. This combination. moreover
is the logical outcome of plans which
were formed when the Kansas City,
Memphis < Birmingham line, now a
part of the Rock Island and Frisco
system, was projected many years
ago. When that road was built
from Kansas City to Birmingham.
its owners looked to Savannah as
its Eastern terminus, never intend
ing to stop at birmingham, but they
were in advance OF the times, and the
system halted for some years at
Birmingham. 1t has been regarded
as almost inevitable that either
through Il connection with the Sea-
board. the two meeting at Birming-
ham, or else through an independent
line, this road would have to find an
outlet at South Atlantic and Gulf
ports in order to handle it's share of
the rapidly-expanding Western traf-
tic seeking a foreign outlet through
Southern ports. The Seaboard now
becomes, through it's interest in the
Nashington-Southern Railway and
through it's connections at Southern
ports, extending from Baltimore to
Norfolk, Wilmington, Savannah,
Jacksonville and Fernandina, the
Southern and Eastern outlet for the
traffic of many thousands of miles OF
road operating through the most
populOus and we'll developed agricul-
| tural and Industrial sections of the
| great West and Southwest. In de-
veloping the Seaboard to the point
| where it has become this essential
factor in SO great II combination,
Messrs. Williams and MiddendOrf
have rendered to the South an in
valuable service, and now in effecting
| such Il combination they have given
to Southern development the great
est stimulation which it has had in
| the last decade.