The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1913-04-24
BOSTON AND MAINE.
A Cry of Protest Against the Diversion of
Railroad Effort from the Pine Tree State.

From the Portland Express.1
Boston, as everyone knows, has been
rap dly losing ground as commercial
centre during the last few years. Other
cities have better harbors and are nearer
the shipping points of the great West.
While these other cities along the Atlantic
coast have been appropriating money
and improving their shipping facilities
Boston business men have been satisfied
to meet at luncheons and dinner and with
great self-complacency brag about Bos-
toms superiority and her glorious his
tory. They have done nothing for them
selves and now have suddenly woke up
to find Boston in danger of losing all
that it has left. For years the Boston
& Maine, which the Boston Chamber of
Commerce now condemns, was control
led and owned by Boston men. They
MIXED New England and particularly
Maine, for many years, standing at the
gateway and demanding tribute from all
corners. A Maine man couldn't go to
New York by rail without paying Boston
tribute. Efforts to secure through pas
senger service to New York from Maine
resorts were unavailing under the old
management of the Boston & Maine, and
we didn't secure it until President Mel
len came to manage the affairs OF that
road. Within short time after Presi-
dent Mellen assumed charge of the Bos-
ton & Maine we got through train ser
vice to New York and the West. The
old Boston management of the Boston &
Maine said that such train service
woul never pay, but it has paid and has
been growing in popularity every year.
T. - -
York to get on a sleeping car after his
business day was over and ride without
change to his summer cottage in Casco
Bay, at Moosehead Lake or at Bar Har-
Dor. This one thing did more for Maine
than anything the Boston & Maine,
under Boston control, had ever done for
the people of this State.
Boston people didn't like it. Like the
robber barons Of the Rhine they had
been demanding tribute from Maine peo-
pie and those who came into Maine, for
years, and the danger of loss of this
opportunity was sufficient to arouse
their hostility to President Mellen. This
was not all that they objected to as far
as Maine was concerned. The Boston &
Maine management had planned to con-
struct a system of magnificent hotels
coast and lake resorts the class of people
who by expensive summer homes form
the most desirable type of summer visit.
ors. Boston doesn't approve of this
being done. 1t demands that the Boston
& Maine use all its resources to build ur
the port Of Boston, which the old man.
agement of the Boston & Maine refused
to do and which it neglected to do TO,
years without protest on the part of the
Chamber of Commerce. Maine people
would be sorry to see Boston lose its
transatlantic business, just as they are
sorry to see the boot and shoe market
shifted to st. Louis, or any of the Other
things happen which endanger Boston'f
supremacy or future development. But
Maine should have no sympathy witt
these Boston attacks on the Mellen man
agement of the New England lines
Maine has everything to gain and moth
ing to lose with Mellen at the head o.
this great railroad system. Boston sci
fishness and unwarranted abuse ha
effectually put an end to the hope o
this railroad building up the summe
resort and agricultural interests of GU
State for some years to come, but event
ual)V it must be DONE