People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — Pacific Railroad Bill. [ARTICLE]

Pacific Railroad Bill.

The Pacific Railroad funding bill, which has under discussion in the House for several days, presents a cstse of “you’ll be damned if you do, and you’ll be damned if you don’t”; so the Pacific railroad question will probably remain an unsettled political issue for years to come. The bill under consideration provided for a new issue of bonds bearing two per cent interest with annual payments, which would extinguish tne debt in 80 years, but the government would still be holding a second mortgage; the first lien of sixtythree millions being a prior claim, and one that would at any convenient time cover the property and wipe out forever all other liens. The Huntington railroad lobby has made a fight for this, but exactly why they should, can only be conjectured to mean that this action suited them best because it left them in unmolested control for the pres ent. The defeat of the Funding bill on Monday is for this reason, at least, a commendable course. When the facts are fully considered the absurdity of the situation becomes apparent. To foreclose on the road and pay off the 63 millions which stand as a prior claim would require more money than would be needed to build a new line to take the place of the present streaks of rust which are in question. The 112 million dollar claim of the government has been juggled into a valueless condition, and the robbers who have manipulated the affair can scarcely want any thing better than to have the government pay them the prior claim and take the dilapidated road. They have already paralleled it with' better lines and could reasonably care very little for anythiny further than to rob the government of as many millions more as possible. The belief that the road prefers to have a foreclosure, is strengthened by the statement that Cleveland will order that course in case congress fails to take any action. The people have no recourse now that will afford any legal protection whatever. The bill which-has been before congress, or the proposed amendments to that bill, none of them really contemplated any remedy, because under the law there is no remedy. The government claim of $112,000,000 is not today worth a cent, nor would anybody buy the claim at any price whatever. But if the government will take sixty three million dollars in legal tender greenbacks and set a force of men to building a railroad across the continent, it will settle more questions than one, and for many years to come there would be no further agitation about “the unemployed.” This measure would be a proposition which would solve the railroad question forever and would be a thousand times better than taking in'the Union Pacific and paying the first mortgage. That $63,000,000 should never be permitted to go into the hands of that robber gang. Put it into a railroad, but not into a first mortgage on the old Union Pacific. If handled properly that sixtythree million would build a railroad from New York to San Francisco.