Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-03-07

NAN HAT was the proper course for the Governor TO take IN
WV the winter of 1911, when he entered upon that tentative
agreement with the lessees of the Morris Canal by which
the canal navigation was to be abandoned and the richest parts
of its assets delivered over to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Com
pany, a foreign corporation that wrecked the canal for private
business reasons and, in doing so, grossly violated the canal char
ter? Did Governor Wilson ask If 1t was possible to restore the
canal to its proper uses and thus save a great State waterway at
a time when in all the rest of the world waterways are either be
ing built or projected? Did the Governor investigate the history
of the Morris Canal and learn that it became non-paying only
after the railway company secured its grip upon the property?
Did he inquire about the many audacious violations of the canal
charter? Was there any query about the injury done to the State
and to municipal and private interests by the deliberate wreck
ing of the canal? Did not the Governor know that there has
never been any expert investigation made TO ascertain the real
condition of the canal property and the practicabilty of making
canal navigation profitable? Was not the Governor informed
about the repeated attempts by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Com
pany to snake bills through the Legislature to give the canal
property to the railroad company? Scandals attended those bills
and at one session a charge of bribery stampeded the Senate after
the bill had mysteriously passed the House. What was the proper
course to pursue in a matter of such grave Importance to the
State? Surely not to close a bargain at once for the destruction
of the canal, after several days of private consultation. The canal
lessees should have been required first to show a clean pair of
hands. Engineers should have been engaged to examine the canal
have been taken in regard TO whether the canal could not be oper-
ated proftably in a business way. If the lessees could not show
clean hands, if charter violations were proven, then it would be
the Governors duty to denounce this criminahty and instruct the
attorney general to take proceedings for forfeiture of the charter.
A railroad corporation is not above the law in New Jersey and
is amenable to its penalties for criminal acts the same as any
other transgressor. CriminaEty is charged against the canal
lessees and the Governor negotiates with them and agrees to re
ward them with millions. A great State public utility has been
wrecked in the familiar way of railroad companies when they get
control of waterways and, instead of trying to save the utility, the
Governor would help to make the wreck final. Is that statesman.
ship? Is it common sense? Is it State policy? If so, then any
surrender of public interests to private interests can be so desig
Med IF the GeFerpors agreement with the Lehigh Valley Rail
road Company shall be ratified by the Legislature without any
more inquiry into the State rights involved the time is not far
distant when this act will be quoted in the United States as enc
of monumental and suicidal folly and of State betrayal.