Year: 1876




We invite special attention to the letter of
Col. Frank s. Bond, vice president of the
Texas and Pacific Railway Company, pub
lished in another column. 1t confirms the
surmise Of the Times in commenting on the
bill introduced in the Senate by Hamilton, of
Texas. The Central Pacific monopoly is eYi-
IDENTIFY bending its energies, first, to secure the
Government aid asked for the Texas and
Pacific, snd, second, failing in that, to prevent
any aid being granted at all. In this Hamil-
ton appears 10 be the very humble servant of
the Central Pacific, corporation which is .
formidable and remorseless enemy of the
Southern interests. It is formidable because
its present monopoly OF all eastward traffic
enables it to extort five or six millions Of dol
lars per annum (beiug the excess realized
from the advanced tariff recently adopted)
with which to construct this Southern"
line. 1t is dangerous, because it al
ready levies heavy tribute from the
country through its single trunk line,
the Union Pacific, and if it can worm
itself through Congress and usurp the fran
chises of the Texas and Pacific, or if it can
even succeed in making its line the California
end of the Texas and Pacific it will command
all the approaches to the Pacific for quarter
of century, and bleed the South as 1t is now
bleeding California. II is especially inimical
to our interests, because if it cannot supplant
the Texas and Pacific by this Hamilton bill, it
will labor with might and main to defeat Gov
eminent aid to any road. Mr.. c. P. Hunting
ton and his confreres OF the Central Pacific are
a standing menace TO the commercial interests
of fifteen millions Of people. If they can ex-
tend another arm of their monopoly from San
Francisco through Texas to the Mississippi
river, they will have fastened themselves so
firmly on the country that there will be no
shaking them Off in our generation. When
they succeed we may as we'll stop talking
about competing line" and "national
highway" to the Pacific. Jay Gould and c.
2. Huntington are not the kind of men to de-
wise competing lines against themselves. They
devise nothing except levers to squeeze ths
people and hoist themselves into greater power
and wealth.


We refer to this subject often because il ap-
pears to us to be Of superlative Importance to
the South. 1t is much better to resist monop-
oIies in their inchoate form than to wait until
they become confirmed in their franchises, and
so powerful that they can defy public senti-
ment and impose on yictimized people with
impunity.


Docs ANYBODY believe this Southern Pacific
Of California" }" a concern without income from
the work it is constructing, owning only frag-
ments of roads, and those chiefly running
through wilderness aud mountains, would be
sufficiently powerful to enlist the Railroad
Gazette, and the Northern press generally, and
command & large number of Senators and
Congressman! The idea is absurd. But
when it is understood that the Central and
Union Pacific, Huntington, Jay Gould and the
rest are at the back oft, the matter becomes
very clear. The short of it is that they, aided
by Hamilton and others, are laboring to de-
feat the Texas Pacific and the common interest
of the South.