The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-03-12
The Better Plan.


clined the first of this year to accept o
use any more railroad passes or trans
portation on the basis of ADVERTISING
exchange, feels at liberty to say wha
he thinks without fear of criticism
Nearly every newspaper in the United
States has for years accepted railroad
passes and would be at it still probably
but for the fact that the Interstate Com.
merce Commission prohibited the issu.
ance Of interstate passes and the use oil
them by anyone except the employees
of railroad company. State passes,
except in those States whose LegIsla-
lures have prohibited them, are still
being issued, but this year the writer
of this has none and will not have any
hereafter as long as the demand is
made that the custom be abolished.
We bought and paid the cash for a
ticket to the Memphis fair last fall, and
the next time we go to Nashville it will
be on ticket bought and paid for in
lawful money of the United States.
The foregoing statement is made to
show that there is no influence at work
to shape our editorial opinions on mat
tiers of traffic and commerce land they
are very closely related and to serve as
an explanation in what we are about
to say.
President j. H. Peyton, of the N,
G. q st. L, Railway Co., as may be seen
IN the memorandum of a compromise
proposed herewith, offers to acceed to
the wishes of the people of Union City
in the opening of Church street with
certain provisions, and one of them is
that the railroad company have inn
munlty from making a grade crossing
OF said street for period of years, but
suggests the fact that this proposition,
should it meet with the consent of the
Mobile & Ohio Railroad Co.. will be I'M
satisfactory to our people years after it
has been adopted. Mr.. Peyton further
adds his willingness to stand by the
proposition he made last summer for
the building of an underpass, provided
the two railroad companies and the city
of Union City enter into an agreement
each to pay third of the cost Of
such construction.
This is what we have argued as the
solution of the trouble for many years
when we rode on a pass. Now we have
no pass and have no computations in
meeting the issue. There is no use to
say there is no demand for the eIi.nina-
ton of the grade crossing. The very
TACT that we are now haggling over this
matter proves that we should have some
thing like an underpass. The advocates
for the opening of Church street for
traffic are free to say that it is the least
crossing on the tracks inside
the corporate limits. But with an un-
derpass through the center of the city
could not all the grade crossings over
the M. q O. tracks be practically elm
mated, and how much more would this
to the life and safety of the
citizens OF Union City than the present
The life of one good cit
lzen is worth more than all the senti-
ment of an open street, and an under
pass is worth more to the value of real
estate in Union City than the conserva-
tion of street lines across the railroad
tracks.
What more?
President Peyton in his memorandum
assures US nothing more in the building
If new depot outside Of the street
ines than the plans offered here last
all. A depot, such as the Railroad |
Commission provides, is not contem-
plated at all. And depot of any ex-
ended proportions at all could not be
'uilt between the street lines and the
T., G. & St. L. Railway tracks. There
5 not sufficient room there for build
ng such as the commission contem-
lated. A great deal of money might
e put in hatiron building but it would
box like wedge.
Why then could we not better afford
, allow the railroad companies plenty
room to build and have their ease
tents of egress and ingress if they in
i'm give US depot of such dimensions
I'd appointments that will serve us for
.ars to come and provide two-thirds of