Year: 1874




the value Of appealing to the American people
through the columns of the HERALD. In
this they follow the example set by
Brooks and Baxter in the Arkansas difficulty
and Penn and Kellogg in the Louisiana
trouble.


The Railroad schcmers IT tho Frent.


Although the session has but just opened
the petitions for railroad grants are already
besieging Congress. The Texas and Pacific
and Atlantic and Pacific Companies have
joined their forces, and through Thomas A.
Scott and A. Pierce. Jr., their respective pres
idents, have presented memorial, Of which
the substance will be found in our news col
umns- ALI their arguments are specious fall
lacies; but even if these begging roads had .
better claim to national bounty the condition
of the Treasury and the heavy load Of debt
under which the country is staggering would
be conclusive reason not merely for denying
their petition but for refusing even to con-
slider it. It is not to be tolerated that the
weight Of our oppressive taxes should be in
creased for building railroads through long
stretches of wilderness with scarcely an in
habitant The memorialists declare that they
rest their cause solely on their arguments and
will not attempt to use personal influence
with the members. This shows wholesome
sense of the odium into which the lobby has
fallen and the felt necessity of putting on
a mask at their first appearance But the
mask will soon drop if Congress consents to
give them hearing.


The objections to the whole proposed sys-
tenn of railway legislation may be summed up
in our objections to this memorial In the
first place, these roads are to be built through
a country without agricultural resources, with
out population, without business. In the
second place, the government credit is asked
for forty thousand dollars the mile when
great many Western railroads have been
built upon the credit of twenty thou
sand dollars per mile In return for
this credit the company proposes 10 give
to the government only part of what it
receives from the government. If the COM
pany should become bankrupt then the
whole business of managing the railroad
would fall directly upon the government.
Unless we change our whole policy toward our
railroad system this is the one thing to be
particularly avoided Finally, there is no
guarantee that the government would not be
swindled as it was swindlsd by the builders Of
the present railway, who, after they had OBJ
tained credit from the United States for their
road, built it as cheaply as possible, and di-
vided the government subsidy among them
selves al the rate of seight hundred per cent
dividends on Credit Mobilier stock.


The truth is that the whole Credit Mobilier
experience convinces us that it is impossible
for any honest system of legislation in favor of
Pacific railways to pass through Congress This
is because the whole proposed system is, in it.
self, dishonest Corporations which have moth
ing whatever, not even credit, which have not
advanced dollar in capital stock, which take
none Of the ordinary business risks Of enter
prise, come to the government and ask to be
endowed with it's credit, its lands, and to be
put in possession Of vast interest. It is not
the function of the government to give land to
defunct corporations or to give substance to
imaginary enterprises. All the profit in this
enterprise-if there is any proAt-goes to the
corporator. All the loss-if there is any loss
falls upon the government Wherever govern
ment has attempted to strengthen with its credit
private corporations, not only in America but
in Canada, we have seen scandals, embarrass-
ments and corruption. The whole system on
which it is proposed to build railways to the
Pacific is wrong We can see no possible good
in any Of these schemes. There is no surer
way for the republican party to increase the
volume of the ''tidal wave which came with
the last canvass than to identify itself with
these measures. II President Grant is as
alive to the interests of the country and his
own fame as he was on imitation he will crush
them with his veto ss firmly as he crushed re-
pudiation.