The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1904-03-10
Ing value continually growing grea,

III
er for their property, awoke the pri-
| vate stockholders 10 action and they
undertook 10 lease ont the rad . they
had good bids for 1t, bids that woali
have nestted the State ard private
stockholders an average Of five pr
cent. and :the Governor refuse 70
allow the state'- proxy TO attend
thee meetings 20 that the Ie&sa
could he made. The Law had pro-
| vid ed that no lea-a could be made
unless the States PROXY vas PRESENT
Therefore when the Governor, who
had been again put iu conirol Of The
road by the legislature OF 1901, re-
pealIBg chapter SIS Of the acts al
1899, which had been passed 10 take
the road from the Republicans. re
fused to allow the States proxy 10
be present 1t suspended all business
and thereby brvke up the power to
lease which meant loss Of some
thing like one huadred thousand dol
lars year To the stockholders Of
| that road, over sixty thou~add dol
lars Of which would have gone To
the tax payers Of the State. AS late
as Feb. 23rd Of this year some OF
the stockholders begged The Cover
nor to allow the States proxy 10 at
tend the meeting Of the stockho1-
ders TO consider this matter and he
refused to do 40, saying the lease
must first be submitted to and must
be satisfactory TO him. When the
stockholders saw there was no relief
to be had in any other way, then
they applied to the United States
court for a receiver which will bring
matters to head, and will result in
putting the road on paying basis,
bnt will remove the feed trough
from at least two hundred Demo
cratic pets that are now feeding on
the money they are losing the tax
payers in running this, our road.
The management Of this railroad is
ON a par with the entire State
management. The road is run at a
loss, has a bonded debt of 1926, 900
and a floating deb, of over 100000
and has not paid a dollar of divi-
dend since the Democrats took con-
troll, Just so with every other part
of the States business. They have
increased our bonded debt five hun
dred and ten thousand dollars. They
have so managed the South Dakota
bond suit as to incur at least eight
hundred thousand dollars more On
that account and will have deficit
enough, which is in sight now, to
make bond issue of at least mil
lion dollars more necessary to pay
the debts and obligations due to Gov.
Aycock's administration. When he
was inaugurated Governor the State
debt was about six million dollars.
We have shown that it will have
to be increased at least fifteen hun
dred thousand dollars more Or the
States stock in the North Carolina
railroad fold, which would be worse
as the result Of the four years man
agement by the Democrats while
AycOck was Governor. An Increase
of twenty-five per cent In four years.
If this thing keeps up where will it
end? Our taxes have been largely
increased to try to fill the aching
void in the State treasury and still
it remains empty. The stockholders
of this railroad have a remedy and
they are using it to cure the mis-
management of their property and
the people have remedy with
which they can cure the entire mis-
management of the State aud that is
their ballot, Therefore we should
all constitute ourselves committee
of one to see that every Republican
pays his poll tax and be prepared to
do his duty in the next election.
AS further demonstration of how
bad this Atlantic & North Carolina
business has been managed. please
publish the following parts of the
Presidents report:
Your road has reached a crisis in
its affairs which must, in some way,
be met, or the cost Of transacting its
business will soon be increased to
such an extent as to greatly impair
its profits.
Your cars are so few in number,
and many of them SO slight in struc- |
ture when compared with the more
cars of your connecting
lines, that it is not deemed expedi- !
ent to permit them to leave your
tracks, with the result that while
your road is compelled to pay a |
heavy car per diem, it has not a
single car, which by going upon
other roads can earn it a penny by
way of offset.
To meet the demands upon it,
you need the following equipments,
to wit:
10 lncn cyl1nOer lOcOmO-
tives, which will cost at !,
this time $4,000. 90
100 first-class $4,000
pound box cars 55,ooO.OU
80 first-class 10000 Id
fiat cars 100000
Los first-class 10000 ID.
log cars $4,000 90 i