Year: 1879

Present Status of the Land Grant Pro-


ject-Desire of Detroit Capitalists to


Build the Road-Responsibilit Of


the Board of Control i'm the Matter.
From the Detroit Post and Tribune.


Since the contract with DIR. Laman for
building the Marquette and MacAnaW
road was cancelled last January for fail
ure to do any work in compliance with
it's terms and conditions, the company
have been diligently looking for re-
SpOnSible person to undertake new con-
tract. In this effort they found DIR. La
man an obstacle. He has represented
that he still had rights under his con-
tract although it had been declared for,
feited by a resolution adopted by the
board of directors of the company. 1t is
understood that the point he made on
behalf of his claim was that the state
board of control had taken no action
with reference to the forfeiture OF his
contract. The action of that board be-
ing necessary, and having been taken to
confirm it at the outset, he insists that
the action of that board is equally neces-
sary to dispose of it. The excuse which
the board of control gives for failure to
act is that matters may as well stand
where they are until some new contract
or presents himself, when they will take
the necessary action. Meanwhile, DIR.
Lamar is reported to have been hawking
his alleged contract about New York for
his own purposes, and at the same time
preventing, by threats to interfere with
any new contract, parties from. taking
hold of it i'm good faith. In this way he
has been an obstruction. If he and his
contract had been unqueStiOnably out OF
the way there is good reason to believe
that work would have been actually
commenced upon the road before this
time hf


Now he has got up a new scheme,
backed, it is said, by Oliver w. Barnes
and T. Haskins Depuy of New York. This
scheme cOntemplates raising some $780,
600 in way which gives the whole thing
the appearance of mere speculation.
DR.. Lamar has gone up to Maruuette to
lay this scheme before the company and
endeavOr to get renewal OF his con-
tract. Persons i'm Detroit who have in
vestigated this matter have no faith
whatever in DR.. Lamar, and they regard
his scheme as little more than a specu-
latiOn out of which a few parties are
likely to make some money regardless OF
the fact whether the road is ever built
or not. The friends of the road, who de-
sire to see it built with as little delay as
possible, express the hope that the di-
rectOrs of the company will have no fur
ther dealings with DIR. Lamar, or at least
that the state board of control steadfast-
ly refuse to sanction any such scheme as
that which he now presents.


The management of this Marquette
and Mackinaw project seems to have
been peculiarly unfortunate. Ithas been
i'm the hands of a company composed of
certain gentlemen in Marquette. They
have been at work ever since the land
grant was first made by the Legislature
some five or six year ago, and up to the
present moment not shOvelful of earth
has been moved on the line. They have
caused survey of the route to be made,
but it is said this work will have to be
made anew. The gentlemen composing
this company have expressed willing
ness to step down and out whenever
there was anybody else ready to take
hold of the project and put it through.
But when bona fide proposition was
made to them from Detroit they declined
to give the refusal of the franchise for
thirty. days to enable the parties to
come together. If the Detroit gentlemen
had been permitted to take hold of it we
are assured that that the road would
now be in process OF construction. They
are merchants and business men whose
only interest in the matter lay in hav
ing the road built and not in any specu-
lative profits which they might make
out of franchise. They were backed by
NewsYOrk capitalists who would have
invested to any desired amount.


Is it not about time for the state board
of control to take this matter into their
own hands? The state legislature has
made liberal grant of land for the pur-
pose of ensuring the building of the road.
The project was considered of sufficient
importancei to the whole state to war
rant this gift of the public domain. The
life of the grant has been twice extend
ed. Chippewa county along the project
ed route is rapidly filling up and there
is clamOr for these lands now withheld
from market. The Upper iPeninsuly
needs the road; the Lower Peninsula
wants it and Detroit must have it. The
road is of the first necessity to this me-
trOpOlis, and her capitalists stand ready
to assure the building of it. .... ..-


Ought not the Board of Control to take
such action as will be most likely to en-
sure the desired result. We want the
road and we want it to be controlled i'm
the interests of the people Of the state of
Michigan at the termini and along the
route, and not i'm the interests of any
speculatOrs or rival corporation or hos
tile community. The Board of Control
owe it to the people of the two peninsu-
las to give them this road.