Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-02-13
The State Road,
a Priceless Investment.

Imagine business netting its owner forty-fve
thousand dollars a month, year in and year out,
whether times good bad, business which
continually increases in value and which does not
cost him penny for taxes or upkeep or operation
That represents the worth of the Western and
Atlantic railroad 10 the State of Georgia under the
terms of the newly negotiated lease. Beginning
December %. 1919. the Road will yield The State
net rental of five hundred and forty thousand dol
lars year, payable monthly in advance, for a pc
riod of fifty years Furthermore, according to con-
tract the lessee will spend least sixty thousand
dollars year for capital improvements the
Road. in addition to whatever expenditures
needfuI for irst-class maintenance and upkeep. In
addition to this the lessee will all taxes on
the leased property, and will pay as ad valorem
tax on its rolling stock and equipment, some ten
thousand dollars year TO the State of Georgia.
The State will derive, moreover, not less than
. twelve or thirteen thousand dollars year from
! the rental of two parcels of improved Western and
Atlantic property located in the business district of
Chattanooga and excluded from the railroad lease
Thus the State will receive annually six hundred
and twenty-three thousand dollars. of which five
hundred and sxty-three thousand, including taxes
and rental from the Chattanooga property, will
be cash. And for the lease period Of fifty years
this will amount TO twenty-eight million one hun
dred and fifty thousand dollars; or, counting the
rental alone, twenty-seven million dollars.
From the twenty nine-year lease now drawing
to end, the State will have received twelve mill
Iion one hundred and eighty thousand dollars;
from the twenty-year lease which ended in 1890,
. the State received six million dollars; that the
rental from the three leases will aggregate forty
five million one hundred and eighty thousand dol
lars The rental has increased from twenty-five
thousand dollars a month under the lease that
ended in 1890 to thfrty-ive thousand dollars
month under the existing lease, and to forty thou
sand a month under the terms of the new lease.
The States income Of eighteen million. one hundred
and eighty thousand dollars from the present and
the preceding lease represents sum nearly three
times greater than the States entire bonded debt.
The income from the lease will be ample to
Iioudate the States entire bonded debt and to take
care of additional bonds up many millions of dol
lars Indeed, if the Western and Atlantic rental
under the new lease were put into sinking fund it
would be sufficient the end of fifty years to re-
tire tyenty-seven millions worth of bonds without
penny's cost to taxpayers
How fortunate il is for Georgia and its people,
that this great property instead of having been sold
for lump of cash, has been preserved as heritage
10 enrich the Commonwealth with a permanent
and a royal income, Whatever amount of money
the sale of the Road might have brought would
have been swept away by special demands in the
course of a few years, and the constant stream of
revenue which the State is assured for the next
half century at least would have been lost forever.
Fortunate and wise alike the people of Geor-
gia in refusing TO sacrifice this birthright for
mess Of pottage-