279 \ E68 L8 HE CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library HE2791.E68 L8 The local press on the Erie railway mana olln 3 1924 030 109 106 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924030109106 THE LOCAL PRESS ERIE RAILWAY MANAGEMENT. JANUARY, 1873. ALBANY: WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PKINTEES. 1872. R iX'x'b^'i INTRODCCTIOK The attempt that ia now being made in the Legislature to change the Management of the Erie Railway Company is one which so deeply affects the interests of the whole southern and western portions of the State that no one can be surprised at a manifestation of strong feeling upon the subject among the people of those sections. For the purpose of showing what is the sentiment of the people along the line of the road, extracts from the leading local journals are brought together in this pamphlet. The attacks made upon the law authorizing the classifi- cation of the Directors of the Erie Railway Company are confessedly based solely upon the charges affecting the propriety of its management. It has been urged that the present managers are incompetent and unfaithful to their trust, and that for this reason, regardless of any other consideration, the Legislature ought to repeal every law which enables those managers to remain in office. There is, iudeed, no other tenable ground for opposition to the classification law. The Legislature of this State long ago passed laws classifying the managers of the largest insurance company in the State, the l?irgest ceme- tery corporation, and also of several other important corporations. The trustees of religious societies have, for nearly sixty years past, been divided into classes. one-third of the body only retiring in each year ; and during the last twenty years more than one hundred charters of corporations have provided for a similar classification of the trustees, making their terms from three to five years. In England the directors of all cor- porations are classified so that not more than one-third of the whole number retire in any one year. In Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, general laws have been passed providing for the classification of the directors of all railroad companies, and in Pennsylvania the directors of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad Company were classified under the authority of a special law of that State. The most of these laws were enacted before the statute of 1869, which provided for the classi- fication of the Erie and New York Central Directors. The English statute was passed twenty-seven years ago. If any reliance can be placed upon the general expres- sion of public opinion through the local journals, it will appear by the articles which are brought together in this pamphlet, as the substantially unanimous opinion of the people living along the line of the Erie Railway, that the charges of bad management, so far as the relations of the road with the public are concerned, are entirely unfounded, and that the road has never been conducted with greater regard for the interests of the general public than it is at this time. So far as the interests of stockholders are concerned, it is the general sentiment of the people through whose towns and vil- lages the Railway runs, that the general laws of the State afford all the means of investigation and protection which stockholders can reasonably require. If, by reason of any oversight, these laws are insuflacient, there is no objec- tion to their amendment ; but those who have the greatest 6 interest at stake, and whose business and daily comfort are dependent upon the good management of the Erie Railway, are unwilling that an arbitrary change should be made in the present Management upon the strength of vague and general charges which no one seems ready to put to proof. The combination now formed for the purpose of obtaining control of the Erie Railway contemplates the transfer of a majority of the stock into the names of two or three persons, not residing in this State or amenable to its laws, and who by these means would be vested with an absolute control of the corporation, and would have it in their power either to sell out the control of the Railway to rival interests, or to administer it with entire disregard of the wishes or necessities of the people liv- ing along the line. Residing in a distant foreign country, no appeal, either to the courts or the public opinion of the State, would have any effect upon them. The charter of the company placing no restriction upon its charges, they could extort from our people any thing which they pleased without the possibility of redress. The Legisla- ture is now asked to facilitate the execution of this design, and it is with reference to this proposition that the local press has given utterance to the opinions which are herewith presented. EEIE EAILWAY MANAGEMENT. From the Elmira Daily Advertiser, (Republican,) Jan. 6, 1873. The Erie Kailway, now one of the largest corporations as it is among the most extended and valuable piiblic conveniences in the United States or in the World, has reached its present pre-eminent position through a constant succession of trials and tribulations. From the very beginning of the enterprise it has been in the midst of perpetual ■ contest. That year after year it has successfully overcome the enormous difficulties lying in its pathway, and placed itself in the very front rank of the best equipped and best managed railways in the world, is proof not only of its own intrinsic need, but of the zeal, ability and determination of its friends. Kunning for long distances through barren and inhospitable portions of the State, sustained in its local traffic by no succession of great and prosperous cities, connecting the metropolis with the lakes by a track which has forced its way over mountains and through a hitherto unbroken wilderness, it has yet in a time so briefthat the fact seems really wonderfal, transformed this wilderness into a garden which blossoms as the rose, and made these mountains the easy high- way of a grand and magnificent traffic which reaches from ocean to ocean. All along its line it has created new towns and villages, it has given increase^ importance, population and business to those already in existence, it has developed the resources and opened a market for the productions of a wider belt of country, it has added immensely to the wealth and thereby contributed to the prosperity of the State, it has more than realized the broad and statesmanlike expectations of its projectors, since its benefits are conferred upon all the people alike, whether their home is along its line or in distant parts of the country. 8 Since the day the road was first opened its Management has been such as to secure the sympathy and approval of those who resided in its immediate vicinity. It has never oppressed or tyrannized over its friends ; it has never been arrogant or imaccommodating to the people. To the best of its ability it has always sought to furnish proper and reasonable accommo- dations. That it has not always been able to do this has been from no lack of disposition, but through want of financial ability. It has been burdened with enormous debt, and cir- cumscribed in traflic by limited and inadequate population. Tet it has pushed its way steadily along, and year by year it has grown in strength and increased in importance and power. A crisis m its affairs placed it in the hands of its present Managers. It was a fortunate hour for the greatness and success of the road. Since that time such energy and business ability have been infused as not only to command public admiration but substantial success. The roadway, then sadly worn out, has since been put in a condition unsurpassed ; the equipment is adequate to all demands and conceded to be of a superior character ; through and valuable connections with the great West have been secured, and in all respects the road is a successful and respected competitor for the business of the country. While aU this has been done to attract dis- tant traffic, no pains have been spared to meet the wants of its own immediate locality. Success in this direction has not been less marked than in the other. We doubt if any great railway in the country has so completely vdth it the sentiment and sympathy of those who live along its line. The people are well satisfied because they are well accommodated. So far as intercourse between the road and the people is concerned there is absolute satisfaction. This is unusual, and it is there- fore remarkable. The reason is because the Managers manage in the interests of the people, and have both the disposition and the ability to satisfy the people. Nevertheless there is a perpetual warfare and clamor kept up against the road and Management by the E"ew York Press in the interest of the bulls and bears of Wall street. Is this war- fare reasonable and just? The obligations which the road owes to the public are all fulfilled. Those who use it are 9 satisfactorily accommodated. "We mean those who use it for trafBc and travel. Those who seek the use of it for purposes of speculation and plunder are not able to accomplish their object. They who want to get hold of it that they may riot in its great opportunities for gambling are foiled in tlieir purpose. "We are glad it is so. "We are glad that Mr. Gould, against all these fierce attacks, has been able to retain his position. Our satisfaction is based on the fact that his ability to manage the road well has been thoroughly demonstrated. Questions in dispute about stock and its owners we know nothing of and care nothing of. Whatever they are, the stockholders are com- petent to take care of themselves. The courts are adequate to the protection of all just and proper claims in that respect, and the courts of this State will not fail to discharge their duty. "With the courts all such questions properly belong, and there they should be left. The Legislature has no right to interfere and cannot intelligently do so. I^o general investigation can be made there. Only a committee can give careful attention to the facts, and on their decision the members generally are compelled to act. Questions involving private rights cannot thns be safely disposed of. "We trust, therefore, the Legislature will have the good sense and the prudence to let this matter alone. This is what it will be asked to do by the unanimous voice of the people along the line of the road — a voice potent enough to be entitled to respect, since it comes from those who are most deeply and directly interested. It is a fact well known and conceded that the stock ol this road is not in the hands of its original owners. The men who put their money into it in by-gone days are not the men who now clamor in these raids on the company. Whatever have been their misfortunes or losses they cannot now be repaired. So far as they were residents along the line their gains have been in the appreciation of property and the general prosperity of this section of the State. The stock is owned by speculators who have bought it for speculation. Rings of Wall street capital- ists have combined to buy it as they would gold or grain. It has been a commodity out of which to make money, not from legitimate dividends, but by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain. Kings of foreigners have combined to buy it when 2 10 it was down to the lowest rates. Eings of foreigners now hold it almost by scores of millions, and ask the people of this State to legislate in relation to it with reference to their inter- ests and to put money in their pockets. The question is, shall this road be run in the interest of such stockholders as these, or shall it be ran in the interest of the resident public. Stock- holders, whoever they are, have rights which should be reasona^ bly respected, but with reference to a railway corporation those rights are subordinate to the rights of the public. "We do not need to argue this point. It is self-evident. Even as again s( the original builders of a road, the road is for the people and not for them. Otherwise all laws which give such roads the right to run their locomotives through one's private house are outrageous and had better be repealed. But the Classification Act. That we are told was a monstrous piece of legislative injustice and ought to be repealed. If it was, let us be careful that greater injustice is not enacted now. "We fail, however, to see wherein this law inflicted any injustice or what there is intrinsically wrong about it. It is a law pre- cisely similar to those which stand upon the statute books of many other States, and is not exclusive in its application to the Erie Eailway. The Pennsylvania Central and many other great railway corporations are managed under the operation of classification acts, and the ISTew York Central, under the same law, is at liberty to adopt the principle at any time. We cannot comprehend why it is not a sound principle. No rail- way corporation can be permanently successful unless there is stability in its management, and in view of the condition of the Erie stock, there is no assurance of stability in its Management without the application of some such rule as this. No, valid objection can be made to the principle. If objection is made at all, it must be to the men who are in control. In this case the force of that argument is entirely destroyed by the lapse of time. If the administration of Mr. Gould was or has been unsatisfactory, there has been ample time to change it, if the stockholders so desired, even under this very classification act. On the contrary, repeated elections of directors have been held since it was passed, and every time those chosen have been in sympathy with the present Management. If this means any 11 thing at all, it means tliat the majority of stockholders are sat- isfied, and want things to remain as they are. Here are facts which the Legislature should carefully consider before it travels out of the way to meet the demands of Wall Street Brokers or foreign speculators in Erie stock. The Central Eailroad has been strong and prosperous because it has had stability in its management. It has been able to mark out its policy and lay out its plans for years in advance without fear of change. No private business can be successful which is in constant hot water. Much less can the business of a great Railway like the Erie. There has been one objection which was founded in reason — that to some extent the road has been the political tool of Tam- many- — but that no longer exists. Tweed is out and Henry Sherwood is in. He is in for business and for a purpose — to look after and secure the local wants and welfare of the people. Those who know him need not be told that whatever have been the political faults of the road in the past there is no dan- ger of their repetition. The road will henceforth be what it should be — a non-political machine. "We submit that the peo- ple of the Southern Tier do not want to change a Management in which are such active and influential directors as Dr. Edwin Eldridge and Hon. Henry Sherwood, for any gambling Wall Street Brokers or bull-headed Englishmen three thousand miles away. The voice of the people along the line of the road demands that it shall be let alone. The Legislature should respect this voice, and allow the legitimate Management of the Erie Rail- way, as of all other railway corporations, to remain in the hands of the stockholders, as they shall decide, in pursuance of the provisions of the general and appropriate laws of the State. There can be no justification for special interference with the affairs of one company, especially when the company against which this is proposed is the one which, of all others, is man- aged and controlled for ^he satisfaction and convenience of the people. 12 From the Elmira Daily Gazette, (Democrat,) Jan. 6. The public have been apprised of the fact tbrougli the newspapei;s, and later the news comes to us from Albany, the center, when the Legislature is in session, of all that is pure and honest in morals and politics, that a combination has been formed to oust, by fair means or foul, the present Managers of the Erie Kailway. Greedy and needy adventurers want their places. To fortify the attack and conceal the real motives which actuate the conspirators against the rights and property of the owners of the road, charges of dishonesty are made against the present officers of the company without the slight- est evidence, so far as we have seen, to sustain them. Sweep- ing charges of malfeasance or corruption in office, without specific details, amount to nothing. We have watched the progress of this fight with an unusual degree of interest, understanding full well the history and condition of the road siilce the first link in the chain of this great national highway was completed to Goshen more than thirty years ago. We do not know that the present Managers of the road have not misappropriated the funds that honestly belonged to the stockholders, but we affirm, from actual knowledge, that no set of officers, from the first that took charge of the enterprise down to the present time, have done more to improve the work and build up its business than those who now control it. When Jay Gould became its President the fact is notorious that it was in a complete state of dilapidation ; utterly unsafe, as its superintendent averred, and, as the public well know, to do business over. Its traffic was substantially ruined and its very name was a by-word and reproach among, not only railroad men, but with freighters and the traveling public of the great west. It had ceased to be a rival, to any extent, of the other trunk lines leading from the business centers of the west to tide water. It had no friends anywhere, except among a small ring of speculators in Wall Street, who made of its worth- less stock a foot-ball, to be kicked about and carried up or down as their interests or fancy might dictate. The stock of the road, when the corporation was notoriously bankrupt, sold for 13 from sixty to seventy per cent, while now it sells on the mar- ket for only thirty-five, and this is used as an argument why the road should be put in other hands. We reply that ^vhen it sold at the former figures it was manipulated by speculators and sold at fancy prices, while now it has a substantial value, greatly above its selling price. Under former management it had inside rings of speculators in steamboats, elevators, express freight and many other enterprises, which absorbed the earn- ings of the road and made the parties interested rich, while the road itself was suffered to run down. If there are any such rings now we are not aware of it. Do the people of the State of New York desire that the property of this great corporation should go into the hands of foreigners who will perhaps sell it out to some rival line, to be made almost exclusively an avenue for freight, while the entire through passenger traffic of the road would be sent over other routes ? Such will be its inevitable fate if the rings and combi- nations now formed to wrest it from its present Management succeeds. It may perhaps be said that the public have nothing to do with the question of what is done with the road after it is restored to the possession of its owners, the legitimate stock- holders, who have pai!# their money for it and are entitled to the control of their p^^pSfty, to do with it as they please. "We do not propose to controWrt this proposition as a general prin- ciple, but we do contend that the owners or managers of this road have no right to so use the same as to interfere with or injure the public interest. Its corporators were granted im- portant franchises by the law-making power of the State. The object was to subserve the interests and minister to the con- venience of the public. The franchises have descended to the present owners of the road along with the obligations which those franchises imposed. It would not be a fair construction of the duties which devolve upon those owners to say that they may convert what is now a first-class property, into a road for the through transportation of cattle and freight exclusively, thus causing incalciilable injury to the business interests of a large section of the State, and bringing utter ruin to thousands of its enterprising property owners ; for such would be the inev- 14 itable result, if the schemes now in embryo are allowed to be carried out. We are an advocate for " reform," where reform is needed. We believe that all men are entitled to possess and control their own property, subject to the conditions which the wel- fare of the whole community imposes. By this we mean that neither the English nor any other class of stockholders have a right to so use the Erie Eoad as to injure the business of the people along its line. The Koad has now valuable connections with both the Lake Shore and Michigan Central Eoads. Mr. McHenry, it is understood, proposes, should he and his friends get control of it, to make it subordinate to the interests of the Atlantic and Great "Western, recently re-organized under his jurisdiction. The people along the Erie Railway want no such programme carried out, and they have a right to be heard in the matter. Eut, says the captious fault-finder, no dividends are paid to stockholders. We agree that they are entitled to dividends, and should have them, provided the earnings of the road, after paying its legitimate expenses, are sufficient for that pur- pose. If the earnings of the road are misappropriated, and such can be shown to be the case, we shall be the last one to excuse the parties guilty of the fraud. A thorough and searching investigation into the Management of the affairs of the corporation would be the shortest, way to dispose of this question. jSTo one who is familiar with the history of the Erie Eailway can doubt that the administration of Jay Gould has done more to build up its business ; to make the road popular with freighters and travelers by making it safe ; to infuse into its Management energy, system and regularity than was ever done before since it had an existence. Since he took control of its affairs it has become what its projectors intended it should be, a first-class thoroughfare from tide water to the heart of the great west. There is nothing to be desired in the running of the road beyond what has been given, except that the stock- holders shotild have dividends, and this we are assured is only a question of time, and short at that, if the Management is continued with Jay Gould and his friends. 15 The large expense incurred in defending the interests of the road against the assaults of its enemies has absorbed a large share of its earnings, sufficient, it is believed, to have enabled the present Managers ere this to have paid a dividend upon its common stock. If now let alone it will soon do so. From the Broome County Democrat, (Democrat,) Jan. 9. We call the attention of our readers to the foregoing article, which we copy from the Elmira Daily Gazette, of Saturday last. It is a fair, candid and impartial article, and one that cannot but strike the reader as eminently just and proper in aU its bearings. We ask its careful perusal. From the Canisteo Valley Times, (Republican,) Jan. 9. William M. Tweed has resigned his position as Erie Railway Director, and Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, has been elected in his place. That Tweed should go out was, of course, under the circum- stances, highly proper. Mr. Sherwood's appointment is one that will give general satisfaction on the line of the road. The Legislature is likely to look into the affairs of the Erie, and to modify the legislation of previous years. We trust that, while correcting evils and guarding against abuses, it will not be forgotten that a million citizens of the State of New York are directly interested in the Management of the Erie Eailway. Their rights and interests are just as sacred as are those of stockholders. Eailroads, although owned as private property, and properly entitled to protection as such, are, nevertheless, public institu- tions, and must be managed in the interests of the people. Under the Management of recent years, the Erie Road has been, to the people of the Southern Tier, their most important 16 element of prosperity. The vast amount of business done upon its line has built up every village and city from the Hudson to Lake Erie. Its branches have brought us coal at reduced prices ; it has bought our wood and lumber at good figures; it has liberally paid its thousands of employees; its pay day is the monthly harvest of every dealer on the line. Liberal, enterprising views and a fair consideration of the interests of the people have prevailed in the Management of the road. "We believe a railroad corporation, drawing its support from the people, holding special privileges from the State, and built in part directly by the people's money, ought to be so managed. "We recollect when the present Buffalo Division was owned and controlled by a single individual. We recollect how it was then managed solely in the interests of its owner. And we well recollect how every citizen's property depreciated in value a;s the result of that management. We don't want to see that experiment repeated. Hornellsville fired cannon in rejoicing when the Erie Com- pany bought the Bufialo Division, and experience has shown that it was a fortunate day for us when that purchase was effected. The Erie has been admirably managed for the interests of the people. Any legislation which should prejudice the peo- ple's interests in this respect would be extremely unfortunate. From the Steuben County Coimer, (Republican,) Jan. 10. We notice that a bill has been introduced in the Senate, to repeal the law passed two years ago, providing for a classifica- tion of the directors of the Erie Eailway. Assuming that the real object of that act was fairly ind^sated in its title, that it was designed to secure a ma,iority of experienced men i'n the board ot directors, and provide against sudden and capricious changes in its Management, the act was eminently proper, and its results have certainly been beneficial, and we, in common 17 with the thousands interested in the welfare and continued good management of the road, should regret to see that act repealed. In accordance with this general feeling, remon- strances are being numerously signed by all classes of citizens. We know little, and care less, about the matters of difference between certain foreign stockholders and the Managers of the Erie Railway ; but it strikes us that the coui-ts, instead of the Legislature, is the proper tribunal before which these difficulties should be adjudicated and finally disposed of. The people living along the line of the Erie, more than thirty years ago, invested their money in its stock, which was a total loss to them, and whose business since its construction has con- tributed to its prosperity, and they as well as the public have rights which are paramount to those of its foreign stockholders. Railways are constructed primarily for the good of the pub- lic, and upon this theory private property is taken, when neces- sary for their benefit, and while those who voluntarily invest their means on their construction should be properly protected, yet the public have rights which should not be sacrificed to subserve the interests or caprice of a few stockholders. Under its present direction the Erie Railway is one of the best, if not the best, managed railroads in the country. Its earnings, it is true, have been largely devoted to increasing its facilities for business, and securing the safety and accommoda- tion of the traveling public, which should be the primary objects in the management of all raihoads. In addition to this it has recently declared a dividend of three and a half per cent on its preferred stock, and, in fact, is in a better, if not more prosperous,, condition than at any former period. The public are more than satisfied with its Management, particularly that portion of it living along its line, who know most of its Management, and have the deepest interest in its prosperity, and they ask no legislative interference in their behalf. It is an American institution, a great American highway, and should be run in the interests of American citizens and American interests. Its English stockholders were not such originally,- but became owners as a matter of speculation, having bought their stock for a trifle, and they, doubtless, now desire to get control of the road in order to manage it for their own interests 3 18 rather than the interests of the public. They, doubtless, desire to milk the road a few years by way of getting even, and allow the road to again fall into the dilapidated condition in which the present Management found it. If the English stockholders can get control of the road under the laws as they are, all right, we shall have to submit to it, and do the best we can with a Canadian road ; but we do hope that the Legislature of the State of ISTew York will allow the difficulties between the foreign stockholders and the company to be settled by the courts and not aid the former in "torment- ing us before the time." Prom the Coming JcmmaZ, (Republican,) Jan. 11. "We commend to the attention of our readers an editorial from the Elmira Daily Advertiser, in reference to the Erie Railway. It is an exhaustive article, and its statements are in accordance with the facts, as we understand them. The Erie Railway is of vast importance to the Southern Tier of counties. Since its construction those counties have greatly increased in population. Yillages have become cities, and hamlets have been enlarged to the importance and dimensions of incorpor- ated Tillages. There has been constant improvement in the adjacent region, as the area of arable land has extended, as a market has been afforded for the timber, and as the contig- uity of stations has made the shipment of produce easy and profitable. During the score of years since the Erie Railway became a channel of communication it has been the cause of a vast addition to the wealth of southern New York, and this is not absorbed by those who were prosperous, but is diffused among the people. All classes share in the benefits of cheap freights and fares, rapid transit and a constant impulse to profitable traffic. The Railway has branches that bring coal for fuel or ship ment, it affords a good market for wood, timber and ties it 19 gives employment to thousands of persons along the route, and distributes its advantages to the surrounding communities. The vs^elfare of a large portion of this State is contingent upon the prosperity of the Erie Eailway. It has never been so successfiiUy managed as by its present Directory. "We earnest- ly hope that no legislation will be attempted that will oust those who have made the Erie Railway superior in all of its appoints ments ; taking it in charge when its track was worn out, its coaches dilapidated, its rolling stock unsafe and unserviceable, and making it a Railway that has the firmest road-bed, the most valuable locomotives, the most elegant palace and sleeping coaches, and the best rolling stock generally to be found in the United States. From tlie Penn Tan Demoorat, (Democrat,) Jan. 13. To a large proportion of the citizens of this State, especially in the Southern Tier and western counties, the question of the destiny of the Erie Railway and its Management is now of deep and absorbing interest. It is but natural that a corporation of such magnitude, one that wields so large an influence and disburses such enormous sums of money, should become the object of envy and even of assaults on the part of those who desire its control, but are out- side of its Management. "Whatever may be said in the heat of these contests against Mr. Gould and his past Management of Erie, there is but one sentiment along the line of the railroad, so far as our knowl- edge or experience goes, and that is of unqualified commendar tion and approval. Our interests iu'this great enterprise are more in the manner in which the road is run, the business transacted, and the people accommodated, than in the private quarrels between the Englishmen and the present Management, or in the truth or falsity of scandalous allegations and charges against prominent members of the Erie Direction. When Mr. Gould's party took possession of this Railway it was in a deplorable condition, illy equipped, with track and 20 rolling stock in a miserable state. It had been badly managed and ran, and was deemed imsafe, even for travel, by a large body of our citizens. "Whatever they may have done in other fields, the Erie Managers have deserved, as they have received, the thanks of all intelligent and unbiased persons along its line, or to whom its practical use is an important question. lio railway that leaves l^ew York at all compares, at this time, with the Erie in all those respects which make a first-class line. Its palace cars are the wonder and admiration, not alone of our own people, but of all intelligent travelers from other countries. Its sleeping cars are unequaled by any line in the United States. Its rolling stock and equipments are of the most superior character, while its business has increased from the old figures of eleven millions to upward of seventeen millions of dollars per annum. These results are not excelled by any railway in the United States, while the arrangements for the comfort and convenience of passengers, and the courtesy and politeness of conductors and employees in their intercourse with the traveling public, are models for any railway, and such as even the New York Central might emulate with profit. Among our citizens the present hue and cry against the Erie Management, and the attempt by popular clamor to influence legislative action adverse to Mr. Gould and his associates, is re- garded as a ruse under which a new party, mainly English, can usurp the possession of the road and wield its enormous fran- chises. None of those who reside in the vicinity of this Kailway, except those directly or indirectly interested with the English party, can contemplate such a change without alarm and concern, and we trust that the Legislature will scrutinize with great care, and act with due deliberation, upon any measure in- troduced in the interest of the Englishman, calculated to affect the best interests of that community most deeply affected by this great road. We do not care for these quarrels, their causes or their merits. The courts can redress all just griev- ances, if any exist, and to the courts these questions most naturally belong. But to the traveling public, the present Managers have increased and doubled the accommodation, and improved the property, its resources and earnings to such an 21 extent as to commend their Management and entitle them to praise rather than censure. Among the Directors of the Erie we are pleased to note one important change, which was made at a recent meeting, and that is the election of Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, as a director in place of Wm. M. Tweed, who resigned. Mr. Sherwood, as is well known throughout this section of the State, at least, is President of the Corning, New Tork and Sodus Bay Eailroad, proposed to be bmlt. Prom the Eocliester Daily Shening Express, (Republican,) Jan. 13. Probably no great existing corporation has, within the past few years, excited and absorbed more deeply the attention of the public, been subjected to severer strictures and more generally misunderstood, than that of the Erie Railway. The recent death of one who has been prominent in the Manage^ ment of this road, and the formidable efforts that are being made by different parties to obtain control of it, have again made its affairs topics of curi'ent interest and afford us an opportunity of speaking at length of the road itself, its accom- modations, its immense importance, not only to the people of this State, but to the interests of the great and ever-develop- ing west, from which to the seaboard it is one of the most magnificent highways, and of the parties who are now engaged in its Management. This Eailway is conceded to be now one of the finest on the American Continent, but its originators in projecting it, great as may have been their expectations, could hardly have thought it would grow to such enormous proportions within the com paratively short period it has taken it to reach its present pros perity and greater promises. For miles upon miles of its course it ran at the outset through a comparatively uninhabited portion of the State, over hills that had hardly been trodden by the white man's foot, and penetrated forests which stood un- broken by the woodman's axe until the pioneers of this road 22 Kewed a path for the iron horse amid their solitudes. No large cities, and a very few towns of any size encouraged the project- ors with promises of local traflfic ; and had it not been for the splendid west which pointed to its illimitable fields of produc- tive soil, its vast forests of valuable timber, and its exhaustless mines of mineral wealth which needed only that the iron rail from the east should touch them, like a magic wand, for them to yield priceless treasure to the nation, the enterprise would have been regarded as visionary as the voyage of Columbus in search of an unknown continent over a trackless sea was by his contemporaries. But the road was believed to be a neces- sity, not perhaps for the State, but for the nation, and the result has shown the wisdom of its creators. Since its com- pletion the huge lungs of the west have breathed freely through it, drawing in and giving forth the vitalizing breath of travel and trafiic ; and along the line of the road where once were only unbroken forests and barren mountains, are now hills smiling with verdure under the hand of cultivation, and towns and cities busy and prosperous with populations drawn to them by the facilities and conveniences afforded by the Erie Hallway. There are probably different opinions existing among the people of New York State, and those elsewhere interested in this Railway, concerning the stock operations of the Manage- ment which has controlled it for the past few years ; but the foes of that Management, as well as the traveling and com- mercial public, to say nothing of its professed Mends, must admit that its provisions for the safety, the convenience, the comfort, and even the pleasure of its patrons, have' been of a character unsurpassed by those afforded by any other road in America. We are speaking now to people who travel, to men and women too, who have passed over the Central and Hudson Eiver Koads, over the Erie, and over the lines which connect this State with the States of the north-west, and they know well enough that in the wide, easy cars of the Erie Eailway, fur- nished with all the conveniences and luxuries of modern travel, and over the smoothly graded track, albeit it is laid through a rough section of the State, they have been transported with a regard for their comfort, convenience and safety that probably 23 no other road in all other respects has equaled. With the run- ning equipment of the road our readers are probably already familiar. Its ordinary passenger cars are fully up to the stand- ard of those in use on first-class roads, the wide gauge, of course, giving them a roominess, and the traveler a general enjoyment of space that cannot be secured on a narrow-gauge, however liberal its management. Its drawing-room and sleeping coaches are constructed on a scale of magnificence that but a few years ago would have been considered fabulous, and are now justly regarded as palatial. The gentleman or lady of wealth can pass from the modern parlor, elegantly as it may be furnished, into one of these mar- velous cars, and find in the luxurious couches and chairs, in the soft pressure of the rich carpet under foot, in the broad windows of plate glass, and in the perfect harmony of beauty and good taste displayed in all the flemishing and upholstering of these swiftly rolling palaces, every essential element of the pleasant home that has been left behiud except the family, which, per- haps, has also been taken along. "We are far from intimating that no palatial cars, such as we have referred to above, can be found on any other road than the Erie, but we do claim that those of this road are the peers of any in every respect, and in the one point, at least, of roominess, are superior. In the matter of transportation of mails, this road was the pioneer of the present admirable system. Two post-ofiice cars are run each way daily over it, which furnish to the public, east and west, the finest facilities for communicating rapidly with each other through the mails. In addition to this, local or accommodation trains, as they are called, perform mail ser- vice for the convenience of those living in the smaller towns along the route. Much has been said in the newspapers within the past few years of the advantage and security to be gained by the use of steel rails in the place of the old-fashioned ones. It is gratifying to learn that the managers of this great road of which we are writing, appreciate the importance of this improvement, and are carrying it on all along their route as rapidly as the means at their disposal will admit. From a report now before us we see that there are about one hundred miles of solid steel, and 24 tliree hundred and fourteen miles of steel-headed rails, abeady laid, making in all over four hundred miles of these improved rails now down on the roads controlled by this corporation. "We need hardly remind our readers that fewer accidents can occur from broken rails and wrecked trains on a road in which these steel rails are in use, than on those where they are not employed. The opinion entertained of a railroad line by those living upon it, who are sufficiently interested with regard to it, and well informed in such matters as to be able to judge, is a fair test of its vabie as a means of transportation and travel. We have already shown that this line has caused villages and cities to spring up where there were none before, and has been prin- cipally instrumental in the settlement and improvement of a portion of our State which was, in reality, but little more prom-, ising to the agriculturalist and manufacturer than the John Brown tract, which is still a wilderness, near the very heart of our eastern civilization. Land all along this route has appre- ciated immensely in value, and what is important to our pres- ent purpose, the people living on it are more than satisfied with the facilities and advantages afforded them by it. The road has seen its days of adversity when, in addition to the great natural obstacles in its path, the selfishness, greed and rivalry of men powerful in influence among the people and in the Legislature, have almost ruined it. Capitalists, controlling other lines, have thrown out a net-work of legislative enact- ments and financial schemes by which they hoped to add this to their other conquests and become more potent than ever as railroad kings. But, through all, the people along the line have found their interests consulted in prices, running time, number of trains and general accommodation. This has especially been the case since the vigorous adminis- tration of the past few years has had charge of the road. The track has mostly been relaid, new rolling stock put upon it, the running of local trains so arranged as to meet the wishes of those directly and constantly interested, and branch lines constructed or secured so as to connect harmoniously with the main line. Upon this point we can let an influential paper, speaking for the class we have referred to above, and published 25 on the line of the Erie, represent their sentiments. The El- mira Ad/oertiser of January 6th says : " Since the day the road was first opened, its Management has been such as to secure the sympathy and approval of those who resided in its immediate vicinity. It has never oppressed or tyrannized over its friends. It has never been arrogant or unaccommodating to the people. To the best of its ability it has always sought to furnish proper and reasonable accommodations." Concerning the prejudice which in some quarters exists against some of the present, and at least one of the late, officers of this corporation, it is no more than fair that, while here neither approving nor condemning the financial operations by which its stock was secured or held, the clear distinction be- tween those operations and the admirable practical administra- tion of its olficers should be observed and remembered. But leaving the first for future consideration, the present Manage^ ment should be judged on its own merits and not in the light of the eccentricities and outside operations of the late Yice- President. Mr. Gould, the President of the road, is a man of great ability and energy. In personality he is the opposite of his late associate, Mr. Fish, and, notwithstanding his intimacy as a business man with the latter gentleman, we have never heard his character called in question. The selection of Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, as the successor of the notorious Tweed, is, of itself, a pledge that whatever taint may have been imparted to the management by the connection of the " Boss " with it, and the personal vices and follies of Pisk, can no longer adhere. As we remarked the other day, the director who will take the place of the murdered Yice-Presi- dent will also, doubtless, be of hke character to Mr. Sherwood, and the prospect is, that this great corporation will not only continue to work in the interests of the people who live upon the line of its road, but will hereafter be found in harmony with the pohtical party which now controls this State and the General Government. Before closing, we should call our readers' attention to one further point. Some of the stock of the road is known to be held by English capitalists. That they have rights as stock- holders, and that our laws should protect them in those rights, 4 26 will be conceded by every fair-minded man. But the efforts that are unquestionably being made by these foreign capitalists to secure a controlling voice in this great corporation should not be encouraged by either our people or our Legislature. It is a moral impossibility for any foreigners to run any import- ant public work to the satisfaction of those immediately inter- ested. If we were a supine, stupid and lazy people, incapable of managing our own affairs, there might be some reason in surrendering them into the hands of others; but Americans pride themselves, above all things, upon being able to run rail- roads and like enterprises successfully. Even now, while these Englishmen are trying to capture one of our greatest railroad corporations, they are compelled to discard their miserable little railway carriages and replace them with the magnificent coaches now in use on this continent. So we hold that as all objec- tionable features in the composition of the Management of the Erie Railway have been eliminated, and as it now promises to be even more prosperous than it has been, and furthermore, as it is held against the assault of capitalists who would consoli- date the road with others, forming a vast monopoly dangerous to the interests of the State, probably the Legislature had better let well enough alone. It is of great material advantage to Rochester, that a branch of the Erie extends to this city. By this the effect of a monopoly, which the Central would otherwise enjoy, is pre- vented, the industries of our city are stimulated, and transpor- tation of freight as well as travel to the seaboard are greatly facilitated. One of the pleasantest trips in the country is that from Rochester to New York, via the Erie Railway. From the Rocliester Union, (Democrat,) Jan. 13. Just now the attention of the public is attracted to the Erie Railway, by the press along the line of that great thorough- fare, and in other localities as well. The occasion of these appeals from the press is anticipated action by the Legislature to make the Erie an exception to other railroad corporations 27 by special and invidious legislation. The people appear to rise up and cordially respond to the press, and are making themselves heard through remonstrances at Albany. The people who are located in those regions of the State, tributary in trade to the Erie, have a just right to feel an interest in its Management, for they have a deep, a vital interest in the concern. This interest should be held paramount to all other considerations — particularly above those of the stock specula- tors and gamblers of New York and Great Britain. If ow what has been the history of the Erie Railway ? The stupendous project of constructing a mammoth broad gauge railroad from the waters of the lower Hudson, along the South- em Tier of counties of New York, to an extreme point in the west on Lake Erie — was conceived many years since and ultimately carried to completion. Great natural obstacles were overcome in this undertaking. The design was to develop a large district of the State that but for this work must have for- ever remained comparatively undeveloped. The people of that great region had paid by tax largely for the construction of the Erie Canal, which was contributing so much to the pros- perity of other sections of the State and comparatively nothing to theirs — that it was conceded in fairness that the State should render aid to their great railroad project. She did so, thus recognizing the rights of the southern counties. This road once completed, the people had a right to suppose that it would be conducted in their interest. The Manage- ment for many years, however, did not fully realize its duties to the people and the local wants were neglected. Yet the people made the best of it, and prospered in spite of the neglect of the Erie Management. The interests of the people were not only neglected, but also the interests of the company. The neglect to keep the tracks in order, the rolling stock in good condition and to secure efficient employees, brought the road into disrepute, and it became a by-word among travelers. Until it came under the present Management it did not receive the confidence of the public. Under this Management it has become an excellent road, with smooth tracks, powerful loco- motives, beautiful passenger cars, commodious station-houses, and all that the traveler can desire to make him comfortable. 28 The trains made fast time, were regular, and they were ample in number to accommodate the public. The freight depart- ment was likewise reformed and became as reliable as those of other roads in the State. And what is more, the system of extending its branches to the benefit of the main line as well as the central counties was carried out, and these branches were operated as much to the public convenience as was the main line. The Rochester, Sus- pension Bridge and Buffalo branches are good examples of what the Management of the Erie has done and can do. The Erie Company now brings and carries away a large percentage of the freight of Rochester. Our merchants say the service is performed to their entire satisfaction. Rochester has, therefore, an essential interest in the Erie Railway — at least so far that it has such direction as will en- able her people to use the line with promptness and dispatch. In this respect our interests are like those of all places on the main line or its branches. We, the people of Rochester and the Genesee Valley, shall not silently consent to legislation that is likely to put this Erie Railway into the hands of foreigners who may or may not conduct it for the interest of the people who use it. This great corporation has from its infancy had to contend with obstacles of some kind, and in the end it was the people who suffered, for it was the people's road. It matters little to us what clique in Wall Street or in Europe owns this road so long as its Management is as good as now, nor would we favor a change of such Management upon the plea that a portion of stockholders, native or foreign, were in some way deprived of the manipulation of this road in their interests. Probably not one of the stockholders who affect to be so much aggrieved was an original subscriber, but all have probably taken the stock at nominal prices, to play with it as a bauble in the market. For the people to take iip their cause, and waste their sympathies upon them, would be about as senseless as an effort to redeem, at par, the Continental Currency paid to the soldiers of the Revolution, and sold to them at five cents on the doUar by the Shylocks of that time. The members of the State Legislature ought, in the con- sideration of questions affecting tlie Erie Railway, to pay heed 29 to the feelings of tlie people who are the patrons of that road. Let them go over twenty or more counties of this State and inquire what the sentiment is in regard to the present Manage- ment of the Erie Railway, as it affects the people using it, and there will be but a single answer, and that of approval. Here in Eochester we have the Central Railroad — a large, powerful and well-managed corporation, but great as are its facil- ities, they are wholly inadequate to meet the local want. The Erie comes to our relief, hut with what both companies can do for us, our manufacturers scarcely dare to make time contracts ahead through fear they may not obtain transportation. We do not want any change in the Management of either company that will shorten the aid our city has from them. Any inter- ference by the Legislature is dangerous in this respect and had better be avoided. The Legislature should let well enough alone, and the people will be satisfied. From the Allegany County Reporter, (Republican,) Jan. 13. We find in Saturday's Elmira Advertiser a lengthy but able and convincing article in favor of the present Management of the Erie Railway. We think it is universally conceded that no road in the United States !has been more ably conducted than has the Erie since Jay Gould has had it under his control. When he took it, it was worn out, dangerous, and in terribly bad rejyate throughout the whole country. A ride upon the Erie road was regarded as extra-hazardous, requiring strong nerves and a quiet conscience to undertake it. But now things are bravely altered. The road has been substantially rebuilt ; its old and rickety cars replaced by new and strong ones, and in many instances with sumptuous palaces, gliding regularly, smoothly and safely over its rails, with its reputation as a com- fortable, safe and weU-managed road thoroughly redeemed. Among the railroads of this continent its reputation is inferior to none, and, as far as the great traveling public is concerned, the advent of Jay Gould into the Management of the road has 30 been most opportune and fortunate. Complaint has been made that the stockholders have received no dividends since. Neither did they before from the earnings of the road. One fact we have recently learned, and that is, that dividends paid some three or four years ago was borrowed money, paid as dividends to affect the stock. This money Jay Gould has had to repay. The present stockholders are not the men who originally in- vested their money to build the road, but are mostly speculators who have bought in the stock for speculative purposes, and at very low figures. A desperate effort is preparing to wrest the road from the present Management and turn it over to the foreign stockholders. For this purpose the power of the State Legislature is to be invoked, and special legislation procured. The contemplated change, if successful, cannot benefit the stockholders pecuniarily, and may prove most damaging to the public. Senators and Assemblymen, especially along the line of the road, will do well to listen to the voice of their constitu- ents before becoming committed to any legislation looking to such a change. The objection that the road is managed in the interest of the . Tammany King is no longer tenable. Tweed has been ousted from his directorship and Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, appointed in his place. "With Dr. Eldridge at Elmira and Mr. Sherwood at Corning, the public may rest assured that the people' s interest will be regarded as of paramount considera- tion. Prom the Elmira Daily Advertiser, (Republican,) Jan. 15. THE TRIBUNE AND THE EEIE EAILWAT. It is possible tbat some honest man has thoughtlessly signed one of these infamous petitions. If so, we entreat him to withdraw his name at once. Even though knave enough, he should not be fool enough, thus to blazon hia villainy. This is the choice and characteristic language with which the New York Tribune closes a diatribe against the people of the Southern Tier for asking the Legislature not to make them 31 the victims of undesired legislation in reference to tlie Erie Railway. While we cannot understand how an " honest man " can be a " knave " and " blazon his villainy," we have come to understand that neither honesty, purity of character, or the most honorable motives form any protection either to individ- uals or communities against the malice and overbearing dictsr tion of the New York Trihune. That paper, grown rich and powerful by the favor of the people, assumes to drive them with the lash of a taskmaster whither it will. The spirit of slavery in its worst days was not more haughty and wicked than the spirit which the Tribune has come to exhibit toward all who differ or disagree with it. Its last and most extraordi- nary ebulition is this wholesale denunciation as thieves and robbers of nearly, if not quite, one-fourth the population of this State. If these words, as quoted, typify the personal views and feelings of Mr. Greeley, the time has come when the infir- mities of age and temper disqualify him to be an impartial and honorable editor. If they are the words of some unscrupu- lous and purchased subordinate, without his knowledge and approval, there is no civil service principle which should prevent the immediate discharge of such a man. They are the words of the Tribune, however, appearing several days ago, and have not been disavowed. We denounce them as not only disgrace- ful to journalism, but as a foul and gratuitous libel on the people of all the counties bordering on the line of the Erie Railway. The people of the southern part of this State know what they want, and they will exercise the right which belongs to them, in common with the people everywhere, to petition the Legislature. They will do this even though the Tribune in its choice and beautiful style shall continue to denounce them as knaves and fools. That paper represents, with its usual fair- ness and candor, that these people are petitioning the Legislar ture not to allow the owners of the Erie Railway to control it. Precisely opposite is the case. They are petitioning the Legis- lature not to enact laws under which the control of the road may be taken out of the hands of those who own it. The majority of the stock is held by the present Management, even since Heath and Raphael have got all they claim. Leaving 32 the matter open to the owners of the stock will accomplish nothing for the Englishmen. They must have legislation, and that legislation is what the people remonstrate against. The road is well managed, the people are satisiied, and they protest against any change which shall put it under foreign influence, or make it other than an independent road which shall conduce, in every possible way, to the growth and prosperity of the Southern Tier. From the Horsehead Journal, (Independent,) Jan. 16. In another column we copy an able article from the Elmira Advertiser, on the Management of the Erie Railway. "We con- cur mostly in the line of argument used, and now that ths prin- cipal cause of our dislike has been, by the hands of an assassin, removed, and putting in place of Tweed such a capital business man as Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, and the intended move to place other competent men along the line as Directors, we think public sentiment will be entirely satisfied with Erie Management, and that it will be made to harmonize all interests. It is the grandest road in the world, and by taking it out of the hands of thieves and politicians and putting it into the hands of such men as Sherwood and othel-s, we have no doubt it will also become a paying road. The Legislature should see to it that it neither falls into the hands of Yanderbilt, or any foreign board of Directors. Prom the Owego Times, (Republican,) Jan. 16. [Editorial Correspondence from Albany.] The number of Eemonstrances, against permitting the Erie to fall into the hands of British Bondholders, presented, was very great. They are generally in favor of retaining the Erie Rail- way under its present excellent Management. They are pour- 33 ing in from every county along the line. We presented three or four, and quite a number has passed into the Senate, where a bill has already been introduced to repeal the act permitting the Directors to classity. "What the fate of this bill may be, we can't say, but it is gen- erally recognized that the Erie Railway, under its present Management, was never so well or so safely run. The road- bed is unequaled, while the cars, sleeping and parlor, have no equals. The justice or injustice of the classification act is a matter between the Stockholders and Directors. Of course, stockholders desire the largest kind of dividends, regardless of the public ease, comfort, safety and expedition ; while the Pres- ident and Directors may desire that their road may have no superiors in all the excellent qualities which a railroad should While we do hold that the Erie was never better managed as a road, we do not hold that foreign stockholders should be, in any way, defrauded of the rights and privileges which, as stockholders, they should possess. But if stockholders will insist upon large dividends rather than the safety and expedition of the traveling public, be they foreigners or natives, some means shoiild be taken to prevent such malign influences from controlling the road. From the Schuyler County Democrat, (Democrat,) Jan. 17. It was intimated, some little time before the assassination of James Fisk, Jr., that the English Stockholders were getting up a " grand combination " for the purpose of " capturing the Erie Railway ;" and that they, with their American co-workers, pro- posed to take advantage of the " Fall of Tammany," and the fact that William M. Tweed had been a Director in the Erie, to make an onset on the Legislature, and not only procure a re- peal of the famous " Classification Act," but also secure such other legislation as would put the road under the virtual con- trol of these British capitalists. This was a " bold movement," and, in the excited state ol the public mind, promised success ; 6 34 but the resignation of Tweed, the death of Fisk, the election of Hon. Henry Sherwood of Corning, in the place of Tammany's fallen chief, and the sober second thought of the people, has defeated their well-laid plan, even vn admcmce ; for the masses along the whole length of the Erie, and all its tributaries, have risen as one man, and sent a protest to the Legislature which has more of the sound of thunder in it, than any thing that has fallen on our ears — in the shape of a remonstrance — since we can remember. The document is admirably drawn (don't believe we could have bettered it ourself ) and signed by everybody in the "Southern Tier" counties — (with tears in their eyes) — and not only in these counties but elsewhere in the State, in- cluding Schuyler county. The sentiment in fayor of the present Erie Management is almost universal, and as decided in this part of the State as it is general. While no one believes that Fisk was a saint, nearly all do believe that he was a devo- ted friend of the Erie Railway, and did much — in connection with Jay Gould and others — toward making it the most splen- did and noble work of its kind on the continent. His official acts as a manager of the Erie Railway, they fully approve, so far at least as the accommodation of the public is concerned ; and they are totally opposed to a " Foreign Eailway " through the lone; range of counties comprising Southern New York. Now, that Fisk is dead, they do not execrate him, but admire the genius that enabled him to do what he has done for the Erie Eailway, and the people whom it has so greatly aided and blessed ; and they will stand, Uhe a wall of fire, if need be, by the Erie Management as it now is. No man can say aught against its President, Jay Gould. To use the language of a contemporary : " In Mr. Gould, who has so long been at the head of the Di- rection, the patrons of the road recognize an upright, honorable man, whose private character is above reproach, upon whose fair name there is no stigma, a man who has made the success- ful Management of the Erie Eailway the pride of his life, and who has the ability and inclination to protect its interests even at the expense of the stock gamblers of "Wall street." They have equal confidence in the integrity, capacity and efficiency of Henry Sherwood, who will become an active Man- 35 aging Director of the road, and they have nnboTinded confidence in the Management as a whole. The press of the Southern and Central counties of the State is, without distinction of party, almost a unit in favor of " the Erie as it is," and opposed, most decidedly, to any interference by the Legislature, in favor of the English jobbers and the " lame ducks " of "Wall Street. The sentiment is, that if these foreigners have all the rights, privileges and immunities of American citizens — open court — the right of voting on their stock, etc., it is all they are entitled to. Any attempt to obtain more will not be tolerated by the people of the State, and the Erie Management will not be disturbed ! This is as it should be ; and any member of the Legislature, from this section of the State, who can't see and feel the public pulse, on this subject, and act accordingly, had better make the most of his present term, for he will assuredly never have another. We stand by Erie. , From the Elmira Gasette, (Democrat,) Jan. 17. The dispute between the present Management of the Erie Railway and the foreign stockholders is a private one. A few English brokers have obtained possession of a large amount of Erie stock at a nominal price by hypothecation, and other- wise, and hope to make a big speculation by getting the road into their hands and then selling out to Commodore Yander- bilt or some other railroad operator. It is not justice these speculators are after, but money. The people of the entire State have a deep interest in this question. It involves cheap transportation from the great west to tide water. It is one of cheap bread to the suffering poor of New York City. "With the Erie in the hands of Yanderbilt, freights and passenger rates would be advanced at once, and the people of Central and Eastern New York would suffer equally with those along the line of the Erie. The Legislature that passes any special act to accomplish this purpose will consign itself to lasting in- famy. Its supporters in detail will be held up to scorn and 36 contempt as being enemies of the just rights of the people, which are quite as important as the prospective aggrandizement of a few foreign speculators. From the Binghamton DaMy Republican, (Republican,) Jan. 18. WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH EKIE? Action on the Erie question in the Legislature has been delayed somewhat, in consequence of the desire of the Attor- ney-General to prepare a bill that shall provide for a new election of Directors immediately. The report of the Senate Judiciary Committee will, we suppose, embrace the recom- mendations of the Attorney-General, whether affirmatively or not remains to be seen. This journal has uttered its sense of the duty of the Legisla- ture in this juncture. Nobody will accuse us of entertaining undue respect for the past Management of Erie, as it relates to the schemes of the officers to keep themselves in power. About that general question there can be but one opinion; yet we are satisfied that the violations of the law, and the ras- calitiee that have cast a shadow upon the Management, and that now, through reaction, menace the interests of the people along the line, were never so glaring, nor so outrageous, as it has suited the enemies of the road to represent them. The immor- alities and the riotous living, which were the result of the sue cess of one of the members of the Direction, are no longer to be charged to the Erie Eailway ; more than the onus of the political operations the Management resorted to, as offset of other political intrigues and corruptions, aimed at the existence of the Erie Management. We allude to the Tammany alliance effected at a time when Tammany was powerful enough to destroy what it could not control. This sin of Erie can be for- given far more readily than other sins, from which there has been, we hope, a permanent departure. We take square issue with those who insist that, because it happens that certain persons own a " majority " of stock, they 37 have, therefore, a right to take the Erie Eailway, or any rail- way into their hands, to operate it as may suit themselves, with first regard to their own private interests. The Erie track is laid upon land, chiefly, of the State of New York. The State of New York has a large investment in the original construc- tion fund of the road. A proportion of the land owners along its line gave to the company its road-bed. "Whoever holds the stock of the road holds it uadeT prior and controlling claims of the people along the line. The argument of the Trihvms that inasmuch as lands on that line have been increased in value, and cities and villages reared, or else assisted in their growth, therefore that the people's rights are subordinate to those of the stockholders, ia New York, in England, or elswhere, is a subterfuge too mean and too weak for very serious treatment. The right of eminent domain, exercised by the State m grant- ing the charter of the Erie Eailway, is not surrendered, nor in- termitted, nor in the least degree invalidated, so far as the right of the people to the service of the road is involved. We suppose the power of the State to take up the rails of the Erie, inheres to-day, under conditions similar to those which justified the putting down of the rails in pursuance of the rights granted by the State. How nonsensical the claim that the people are under such obligation to the road as to constitute their property, lands, etc., virtually the gift of the road ! Are the homes of south- em New York the enfeoflinents of Vanderbilt and Raphael? Are the people the slaves, or, if we speak more precisely, the prey, of a body of stockholders ? A railroad being constructed on the soil of the Southern Tier, have the people called on themselves a curse like Jupiter's ? We assure the Legislators of this State that, as they would represent the people, and not the money-changers of Europe nor the stock gamblers who are beclouding the question, they must stand by the people, who have sent them petitions containing names of citizens of all classes, by tens of thousands, and, we presume, by hundreds of thousands, in favor of the Erie Railway under the Management of the present Company, and so against any legislation that will have the effect of putting the road in the hands of men who wiU operate it either for dmidends, at the sacrifice of the 38 comfort and the lives of travelers, or else wlio will have inter- ests in making the road subsidiary to the New York Central or Pennsylvania Central. Without at all justifying the tricks of recent years, or explaining them away, or leaving them out of sight, but, on the contrary, with the understanding and the stipulation that there ought to be such legislation as to better protect all interests than heuetofore, we insist that the Eeie MUST KE MAINTAINED AS AS INDEPENDENT COEPOEAIION, inde- pendent of an accidental and mercenary foreign interest, which has no sympathy whatever with American progress or security of travel, and which gained its interest when the Mwnagement of the Erie was in present hands ; and equally independent of the influence of the unscrupulous men who control lines competing with the Erie, in whose competition the people of this and other States have permanent and vital interest. This consideration — the integrity and independence in a strict sense, of the Erie Railway — is overshadowing. It rises above the every question of men, or of stock, or of assumed rights that are selfish, and are without regard to any interest except that of dollars and cents. The newspapers which take the view that the people of Southern New York, who stand for the Erie line as it is rather than as it might be, are dishonest, or lack discrimination or intelligence, do themselves as well as the people they do not understand, a very grave injury. We are warranted by common consent in finding a discreditable motive, underlying a cause whose advocates are so ready to im- pute false motives to others. The bold impudence which sus- tains the men of the press who undertake to say, what shall and what shall not be, in a matter which concerns others chiefly, and over whom they have, to say the least, no advantage either with respect to intelligence or honesty, is one of the marvels of this controversy. The Classification Act had its doubtful features. We have pointed them out. But the principle of classification is right. It is fully approved in other States ; and England, some of whose people cry out against it here, was, we believe, its seat. It was, hence, borrowed, from English law. And it is right and best. The clamor against it is a false clamor ; and the "Directors' Bill" which preceded that for classification— and 39 the object of which was to keep out of t^ie Erie Management the representatives of other roads who sought to make a great monopoly of the two great lines of this State — was on all grounds to be defended. The Classification Bill would have been exactly right, if its action had been prospective, instead oi present. It accepted the then Board of Directors, the terms of whose office were in effect extended ; and that was its error. It was a common practice in legislation. Elections have taken place under it ; the road has been vastly improved ; the people have been accommodated as never before ; the Direction has passed, or is now passing, into new hands ; and the operation of the act will be a hundred-fold more satisfactory than that of another act, which is likely to put upon the people of South- ern New York a domination they denounce and hate, and that they would, doubtless, at great sacrifice, be compelled to break down. "We speak thus plainly because we would do what we can to ward oS the danger that threatens. We abate no jot of our criticisms ; we shall do what we can, when the interests of the people are safe, to bring about perfectly honest management at the hands of men friendly to the Erie Hallway. "We would, in the mean time, disregard every minor issue. The one thing, the running of the Erie Railway for Southern New York, must be conceded to the people of Southern New York; and after that, all that is necessary for the protection of the stock gamblers who say they were smitten, or of Vanderbilt, or Scott, or of the innocent English who bought for a song, and who now want " dividends " so that they may make for- tunes, can be done. As lives are more precious than dividends, and as the Erie is better for us than either of the " Centrals," we stand by the superior and higher interests. Our readers are not to be unmindful of the fact, which we have upon assurance worth accepting, that what has been a great injustice to Binghamton, the neglect of the Erie to pro- vide suitable depot accommodations here, is to be remedied soon. The track and the road-bed, for about the whole length of the line, are in excellent condition ; and the construction of suitable buildings at Binghamton will now come as a matter of course. Shabby enough for that reason. The Management 40 sees the importance of local strength, and as it has for some time had a creditable representative at Elmira (Dr. Eldridge, formerly of Binghamton, and who has many friends here), and has of late a worthy accession to the board, in Mr. Sherwood, of Corning. There is some evidence that the proposal to have a Director at Binghamton will be carried into effect. We mention these indications of improved prospects with much pleasure, and they will have, in our readers' estimation, the importance they desire. The people and the Legislature hold, of necessity, a some- what anomalous position on the issue now presented. If they and their representatives could have just what they could desire, the nature of their choice it would not be difficult to indicate ; but as they are to make election between the ills and blessings they now have on one hand, and a subordination on the other, that promises improvement in no sense, and must be for many reason, and doubtless for all reasons, a calamity, their course, at the last, is decided ; and whoever fails to recog- nize their right to respect in that choice, or who does not see in it the elements of true and correct policy, ought to look into the question forthwith. The Legislature, and the Attorney- General no less than the Legislature, will act discreetly and fairly, by giving heed to the people's voice, that they have had ample time and opportunity to hear. From the Yates County Chronicle, (EepubUcan,) Jan. 18. Great interest has attached to the concerns of the Erie Eail- way for a long time past, and recent occurrences have not diminished that interest. As one of the great institutions of the country, it cannot fail always to enlist a large share of public attention to its interests. "When the Yanderbilt mo- nopoly failed to get control of the Erie, we rejoiced in com- mon with the great share of the people of Western J^ew York. That was a fortunate result for the people, whatever might have been its effect otherwise. The people have been the 41 gainers all the way along. "Whatever may be said of the faults of its Management, it has been fair and liberal to the people most directly interested in its way of doing things. Every- where along the line the people are its friends. They have been well treated, and so appreciate it. The great public praise the general good Management of the Erie. Its trains are well run ; its accommodations are of the best that money and modem art and science can provide, and the public along its line are not neglected and abused for the benefit of the more distant public. These things are entitled to some weight. We wish to screen nobody's rascalities, but we are content that the courts shall settle all equities between contending stockholders. But it does seem to us that it would be well for the Erie to maintain its independence of the Central, and all other com peting lines, rather than be absorbed by them. Also, it seems to us important that a class of foreigners should not become the controlling managers. Whoever controls the road, they can hardly make it more acceptable to its patrons than the present Management. Tweed is no longer in its Board of Directors, and his place is filled by Hon. Henry Sherwood, a man whose interests are bound up with the people of oux own section. This we believe to be a thoroughly wholesome change. Fisk is gone, and his personal faults can no longer be charged to the Erie Manage- ment. ITo doubt his place will be filled as well as Tweed's has been, and we trust the Erie will long flourish free and indepejident, and maintain the interests of the people against competing monopolies. From the Elmlra Advertiser, (llepublican,) Jna. 18. THE EAILROAD QUESTIOK Tlie remonstrance of the people and the press of the Southern Tier against the proposed legislative interference in the afiairs of the Erie Kailway is gratifyingly general and unanimous. We have republished from day to day articles which have appeared in neighboring papers, and give others in the present issue of 6 42 the Advertiser. This expression of the press is not confined to the line of the road, but comes, in several instances, from local- ities far distant. The one single exception which we have noticed is that of the Jamestown Journal, in Chautauqua County, but as that place is not on the Erie but the Atlantic and Great "Western line, this exception may, in some measure, be accounted for. The Journal takes exception to our recent article on this sub- ject, and especially to the fact that we indorse the justice and propriety of the Classification Act. Now this classification act was not made for the Erie Railway alone. It is a general law, which any company is authorized to adopt, and which the Erie Railway has done. Since it has done so there have been two elections of directors, three being chosen each time. The whole number of directors is seventeen. At these two elec- tions, if the stockholders so desired, six directors might have been chosen in opposition to the present Management, and by one more election the character of the board would be changed. But no effort has been made to do any such thing. There is no evidence beyond the clamor of certain New York papers, that any considerable number of shareholders desired any such thing. The amount of stock voted upon by the present Management has been greater than that held by any other interest — greater than can now be combined in any other interest. There is nothing to prevent a change in the Management whenever the majority of the stockholders desire it and can agree upon a com- bination to do so. There is no combination, however, which can be formed for a change which will not have its soul and center in England and put the control of the road absolutely in foreign hands. It is against precisely this that the people of this section protest, and from which they have a right to be protected. This great Railway was not made to put money in John Bull's pocket, but for the public convenience and accom- modation of the people. The vast improvement which every one sees to have taken place in this road, the substitution of powerful locomotives for old and wheezy ones, the introduction of the finest and most palatial cars, the double tracking of the line, the laying of steel rails, the perfection and smoothness of the road-bed, the 43 negotiation of western connections, and all the manifest advan- tages which it enjoys to-day are the direct results of the opera- tion of this Classification Act. It has made the Management secure in place beyond the term of a single year ; it has taken the road out of the danger of an annual change of policy ; it has given it abihty to have a policy and assurance of time to perfect it. That policy has consisted in the outlay of millions upon millions of dollars to make the road a successful rival with the Pennsylvania Central and the New York Central. "Without the permanency of the Classification Act none of these things would have been possible. The road would still have been a feeble and weak concern as it always had been before. Stock- holders might possibly have had a dividend, but it would have been at the expense of the welfare of the road and the prosper- ity of the people. "We assert again that the right of stock- holders in a great railway corporation, like the Erie, are sub- ordinate to the rights of the people, and that management is best which cares for the people first and the stockholders after- ward. Such Management as the Erie Railway now has will eventually take care of both, while the management which the vultures of "Wall Street would give it would never assure satis- faction to either. The Classification Act, having accomplished all this, has been a beneficial act, and its benefits have inured, where all legislative acts should inure, to the public. Being a good act in its results and consequences, it should stand. Against these vast beneficial results what can be shown in the way of evil and wrong ? Absolutely nothing. "Who has been injured ? Absolutely no one. On the contrary all have been benefited, even to the stockholders. Englishmen included, for their property has been enhanced immensely in value. The old cry against the baleful infiuence of Tweed and the personal frailties of Fisk can no longer avail with sensible people. They are now both removed, one by resignation and the other by death, and the personnel of the management is as honorable and unexceptionable as that of any railway in the country. Jay Gould, the President, is a man of unblemished reputation and character, against whom the breath of slander lisps no word of disparagement. His executive and adminis- trative qualities are of the highest order. He is surrounded by 44 a Board of Directors each and all of whom command the confi- dence and respect of all who know them. His interests and his hopes are all centered in the success of the great corporation over which he presides. While he remains at its head it will continue to be an independent road, and will not become a tender to any other. In the interest of the people it will be maintained at its present high standard, and fulfill its great destiny as one of the leading lines of the country. Believing this question to be one of vast importance to the people of these counties and of this State, a question which rises above all matters of dividend to stockholders, we appeal to the public to look well to their rights, and by all legitimate means to secure themselves from the evil consequences of a transfer of the Management of the Erie Railway to foreign control. Prom the Dundee Record, (Independent,) Jan. 18. Once upon a time, when we were younger than we are at present, we took a business excursion to Cattaraugus county, ]S"ew York. Our route led us to Hornellsville, and thence on in a westerly direction, and often brought us in view of the then projected line of a railroad which it was hoped would, at some time in the future, connect the city of New York with the little and then insignificant town of Dunkirk, on the shore of Lake Erie. This was before the wise men of America had learned how to construct such roads, and the company had supposed, as every body else did, that they must rest on piles. "With this idea in mind, they had laid out thousands in money, expended much time and labor and wasted millions of feet of first rate timber in piling the designated track, and for mile after mile there were two rows of such piles driven and sawed off" evenly, to form a resting place for the ties and rails when laid. In this useless experiment they had thrown away timber of first quality enough to make three sets of ties for the track over the ground occupied by the piles. Owing to a failure or disarrangement of the company, the work was stopped, and before it was resumed again the world had moved, and some simpleton had found that a railroad could be laid without filling its bed with the choicest timber of the country. The new plan was tried, and, after many changes and much labor, the road was finished, and the iron horse was to be seen and heard at all hours, by day and by night, pranc- ing and snorting among the mountains, over the plains and across the rivers of New York, drinking from the Hudson at one end of his route, and from Lake Erie at the other. This road has now become one of the great thoroughfares across the State, and, by its branches and connections, opened a medium of travel and transit of goods, wares and merchandise, as well as the various products of the country through which it passes, and has added greatly to the wealth of the southern part of this State, as well as the northern part of Pennsylva- nia, and has become a thing which could in no way be spared from where it is. It has given life to agriculture, and built up many villages upon its route ; opened markets where thirty years ago no one would have thought of such a thing, thereby enhancing the value of the farming country adjacent to many times the value it bore before the road was placed where it is. It has sufiered reverses and lost by bad management. It has had its enemies, and at times its afiairs have looked dark and precarious, but stiU it has kept on and now affords as good accommodations and as cheap fare, as any road in America. Its late Management may not have been as profitable to the stockholders as they could have wished, but it certainly has never done as well for the public. Let Mr. Fisk be as he is rep- resented, he and his associates have certainly done justice to the traveling public, and have done much in the way of making the road safe and furnishing it with elegant and commodious cars. The State gave the company in the outset, upon their finishing the road, the sum of $3,000,000, and as they have received and been benefited by the boon, the company ought not to object to the State's exercising a guardianship over it, so far as to legislate upon its matters so far as to see that its use is continued, and that the control of the same shall be kept under the management of stockholders who are residents of this 46 country, securing to foreign stockholders all. their just divi- dends, and ultimately the redemption of their stock, whenever the company shall see fit to engage in the business of purchas- ing and transferring the stock wholly to America. We lived some years before there was a railroad in being, and have heard very wise men declare them a chimera, and an impossi- bility, and we have lived to see a net work of them all over the land of our nativity. Our experience has taught us that wise men, scientific men, men who are dubbed A. M., A. B., LL.D., Prof., or Pres't often make A. S. S.'s of themselves when things come up which were not taught in their philosophy. They forget that the world moves, and that there are thick headed feUows who are thinking up some new things to as- tonish wise dough heads. Tweed, the nominal Governor of the State, in the past, is no longer a Director of this road, and his place has been filled by Mr. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, 1^. Y. Mr. Fisk has been assassinated, and no doubt his place will be filled by some man of honor, and all will move on smoothly. We wish well to the Erie, and mean, at some future time, to pass over the whole length of it. We have passed over much of its route, before this great work was thought of. What a change has taken place ? Prom the Corning Democrat, (Democrat,) Jan. 18. Since the effective and popular Management of the Jay Gould Direction raised the Erie Kailway from bankruptcy, it has become a desirable prize in the eyes of financial magnates — especially those who are foreign in every sense of the word. Short-sighted politicians joined with British speculators, and made the Management of this railroad the only political issue of the campaign of 1870, in this State, and sought every means to overthrow the usefulness of the road as well as the men who had built it up. This combination failed in the courts and before the people, but they still struggle for the mastery. A new crusade is started before the Legislature, who 47 were elected on the reform issue, but tlie crusaders are non- plussed with thousands upon thousands of petitions to the Legislature to keep their hands off this great thoroughfare. The people from every section of the State say to their ser- vants: "Don't meddle with this road, and, above all, don't let it fall into the hands of a monopoly." Instead of being the football of every "Wall street clique, the Erie has become one of the most popular roads in the country. The Management has identified its interests with that of the people. Travelers choose it for its commodious, comfortable and carefully managed arrangements. Shippers seek it for its assured safe and speedy transportation of goods. It pays its employees liberally, and more promptly than ever before in the history of the road. When differences arise between the employees and the company, they are settled amicably. Liti- gation with individuals for damages is now almost unknown. Indeed, in all its relations with the public, the Erie Eailway Management has improved upon its former practice, so much so, that the community look upon any change in its policy as a calamity, and a change in its Direction as likely to lead it back into its old courses. Above all things the people dread the control of foreign speculators. A few years ago it was in the hands of a German " syndicate," with Charles Moran at the head of the company. Their sway was disastrous in every respect. The employees received little, and that so seldom, that they could not meet their necessary expenses. The public fared little better, and the credit of the road was so poor that great difficulty was experienced in keeping it running. The plea that the English Bondholders have no share in its control is a specious one. They are in the minority and can- not claim the control. As well might the smaller sharehold- ers of the Central Eailroad claim legislative aid to oust Commodore Yanderbilt. It is said the stockholders receive no dividends. There are millions upon millions of money, invested in other corpora- tions, that pays no income, upon which no legislative enact- ment can insure an income. It is argued that we do not act in good faith toward foreign 48 capitalists when their investments are not profitable. Was that consideration admitted when our Legislature commanded that the interest upon the State bonds held by foreigners should be paid in depreciated paper currency? Will it be considered incumbent upon us to assume the payment of the confederate bonds held in Europe ? With these questions, we hold the Legislature has no right to interfere. Kailroads are a public necessity — as such, they are granted rights and privi- leges exclusive in their character — authorized by public authority, and are primarily run in the public interest, and for the general welfare. When a railroad fulfills its duties to the public, then should legislative interference cease. There is no question but that the Erie Railway is perform- ing its duties to the public with greater acceptance than any that can be named, and we believe the time is not far distant when its stock will bring more in the market than its rivals, if its present policy is continued, and the Management are not harrassed and hampered by foreign monopolists. This is one of those enterprises which to " let alone" is an eminently proper and statesmanlike course. From tte Owego Gazette (Democrat,) Jan. 18. Petitions in favor of the present Management of the Erie Eailway are being circulated along the line of the road, and are being fast filled up with the names of business men. For the traveling public the Erie is the best managed road in the coun- try. The cars are the finest and safest of any in the United States and the track is always kept in the finest condition. Prom the Dundee Telegroeph, (Independent,) Jan. 18. The Managers of the Erie Eailway have shown remarkable sagacity in the reconstruction of their Board of Directors. Mr. Gould must be a man of great power and vast penetration to 49 have managed so successfully and well the changes in the pe)'son-nel of the Erie board after the overthrow of Mr. Tweed, and the events that made his retirement a necessity. No one's memory is so short as not to be able to recall the prominence of Mr. Tweed in the city and State, a few short months since, nor how, as one of the means of political advance- ment, Messrs. Tweed and Sweeny determined to grasp the control of the Erie Railway as a political power to be used in the interest of the Democratic Party. Mr. Gould is not a politician in the ordinary sense of that term. He was for the Erie Kailway, first, last and always, and he allowed these men full sway in political matters, but held absolute control of the minutest details of the management of the line. Thus, while seeming to use him, Messrs. Tweed and Sweeny were the actual tools of Mr. Gould. He, when the time comes for action, removes them from his board as quietly as possible and vrithout a ripple on the surface of Erie aifairs. The choice of Mr. Henry Sherwood to fill the place vacated by Tweed's resignation is a fair example of the rare and pecu- liar sagacity of Mr. Gould. No man in Western New York possesses a larger share of the public confidence than Mr. Sher- wood. Prominently connected with the proposed new lines connecting the Erie Eailway with Lake Ontario, he was pecu- liarly acceptable to Yates county, so much afiected by the new line, as he was for other causes to the Southern Tier and western counties. Dr. Eldridge, of Elmira, will in the new Management assume a much more prominent position than before. He is identified, and honorably, too, with every prominent improvement of his own city, and is confessedly one of the most public-spirited and prominent men of Western New York. The death of James Fisk, Jr., removes what may well be regarded as the last obstacle in the path of such a reconstruc- tion of the Erie Management as would entitle it to pubhc con- fidence and support. While the influence of Colonel Fisk upon the Erie Eailway must be regarded as a redeeming feature in his character (for Fisk has been largely instrumental in the progress the road has made, in its rolling stock, equipment, general management 7 50 and increased business, since the present Management assumed control), it cannot be denied or concealed that his private life was so notoriouslj bad and scandalously immoral, that public confidence, especially in localities away from the line of the Tiailway, was almost entirely withdrawn from it. Indeed, we are told that Mr. Gould was too far-seeing and too keen an observer not to be conscious of this fact, and that he was contemplating a change in the Board, which would have residted in Mr. Fisk's withdrawal. If this be true, the pistol of Stokes has relieved Mr. Gould from an unpleasant, a deli- cate, but strictly necessary, part of the programme, which was to give Erie a reconstructed Management which met the public approval. The attempt of the English party to aid their cause by avail- ing themselves in the Legislature of the popular hue and cry against the ring was no sooner shadowed by Senator O'Brien's motion, than the people along the line rose as if en viasse against it. "We learn that the Legislature is being literally flooded with remonstrances against legislative interference in this private quarrel. Public sentiment outside of the city of New York seems thoroughly aroused in support of Mr. Gould's management, especially in the Southern Tier and western counties, and of its influence upon members of the Legislature, although we are told by certain journals that the body is unusually venal and corrupt, but which we are glad to say we do not believe. We venture to predict, however, that, in the great struggle upon reform now pending, few men in the Legislature will be found, outside of the ISTew York city members, who will have the courage or the hardihood to lend themselves to the aid of the Englishmen, except, perhaps, such as are identified with hostile lines. British gold may be plentiful, and probably has the same strength now as ever, but popular sentiment, when at flood tide, as at the present, is a still higher and a far more signifi- cant power. 51 From the Binghamton Democrat, (Democrat,) Jan. 19. Ever since Fisk and Gould loomed up prominently in connec- tion -with the Erie Railway, there has been a concentrated at- tack on them by men interested in the success of other roads and by prominent New York papers. People who frequently ride over the Erie Railway and over other roads cannot under- stand the cause of this attack on the Managers of the Erie. They find no company that looks so carefully to the convenience and comfort of travelers, or that furnish such accommodations. The conductors and other employees of the company are gen- tlemanly and polite, ever ready to give such information as may be desired. So far as our experience goes there is no road in the country run so thoroughly in the interests of the people as the Erie. In carrying freight it is less severe where it has a monopoly of the business, than other companies are. It is plain, therefore, that it is not the people at large that are making the great howl against the Managers of this Eoad. They are interested in having good accommodations and safe passage, and, under the present Management, they get it to a far greater extent than any other road gives. Under former Managers the cars were rickety and dirty, trains ran irregulaijly, the rolling stock was played out, and in fact it was in just such a condition as Vanderbilt and other opposition railroad men desired it should be. It has doubtless cost a mint of money to place the Erie Railway in the splendid and unequaled condition it is to-day, and it is no surprising thing, that there has been no stirplus earnings, as the stockholders would have desired. If Fisk and Gould should follow the advice of foreign and other stockholders, who care nothing for the convenience of the people, the road would be cursed by all the people, travel- ers imposed upon, and probably there might then be a surplus to divide. It is the best interests of the people to keep the Erie out of the hands of the foreign and western stockholders who are making an effort to gobble it up, and we are therefore glad to see that petitions are being generally signed in this city, and all places along the Railway, praying the Legislature to take no action in Erie matters which might place its control in the hands of foreign or other parties who are more interested 52 in speculating on the road than in making it desirable for the people to travel on. We have not been able to understand any honorable reason for the incessant attack on this road by leading New York papers, and we do not wish to charge them with being influenced against the Erie by bribes. Fisk and Gould may be very bad men personally ; if so, they are not alone in that list, but so far as the people are interested in the road, they cannot do less then applaud these men, and feel anxious that there be no change which shall put unknown men in their places. We hope the Legislature will not interfere with the Erie. From the Havana Journal, (Republican,) Jan. 20. THE EEIE EAILWAY— ITS PAST, PKESENT AT^D FUTUEE. Late dispatches from Albany announce the reception there of numerously signed remonstrances from the Southern Tier and central counties of the State, against legislating out the present Managers of the Erie Eailway, and legislating in a management of the foreign stockholders and their American allies. These remonstrances have been signed all along the line of the Erie, and its branches and connections, with an alac- rity and unanimity which clearly indicates an overwhelming public sentiment in favor of the Management as it is, and a firm, undivided front, from the Hudson to the Lakes, against allowing this great thoroughfare of travel, and grand artery of commerce, between the east and the west, to fall into the clutches and pass imder the dominion of a few rapacious for- eign Shylocks, and a nest of native railway sharks and conspir- ators, who have vainly endeavored for years past to control, crush and destroy it. The pretense for asking legislative interference in this case is, that the Erie has been mismanaged by Jay Gould and his asso- ciates, the present Board of Directors ; that no dividends have been paid, and that the foreign stockholders desire to inaugu- 53 rate a dividend-paying management. Whether this plea be true, in whole or in part, is of but little consequence ; for, if true to the very letter, it would involve no right to special legislation for relief. The usual and ordinary avenues for changing the Management and obtaining legal redress for alleged wrongs, are open ; and if these are not sufficient for the foreign stockholders and their attorneys, they had better sell out at present prices and retire from the contest. When they come into the State of New York and ask special, extra- ordinary and even unconstitutional legislation, whereby they may be enabled to seize upon one of the leading and most important railway corporations of the commonwealth — an exclusive privilege never yet accorded to American citizens — it is high time for the people to arise en masse, sound the alarm, speak to their servants at the State Capital in tones that cannot be misunderstood, and effectually nip such foreign impudence in the biid. Let Englishmen control English poli- tics and English Hallways, and Americans control American politics and American Railways. We want not, need not, will not have, any English management of the Erie Railway ; and any man in the southern and central sections of the State who votes in the Legislature for unseating the present Board of Directors, by the repeal of the Classification Act, and legislating in thereby a foreign set or otherwise, may as well order his political tombstone, for by so voting he will consign himself to a political grave. We are thus emphatic because we know that the public, in the portions of the State named, and to no inconsiderable extent all over the State, are well satisfied with the Gould Management of the road ; and every election for directors, since he became a member of the board, has demon- strated that a large majority of the stockholders are well sat- isfied also. When Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., first became leading spirits in the Management of the Erie Railway, it was almost a wreck and a ruin, and seemed likely to become an easy prey to the hungry vultures who expected to fatten on its lifeless remains. The road paid no dividends then, and could only, with great difficulty, keep itself in poor running order and pay its working expenses out of its earnings. Gould, Fisk 54 and their compeers wrested it, as with giant hands, out of the very jaws of death. Fisk became the " Greatheart" of its defense against Yanderbilt, the winged Apollyon of the Hud- son Eiver and New York Central. "We glory in the fact that he "fought the devil with fire," and triumphed in every pitched battle. The road has paid no dividends since, and ought not to have paid any until it had been placed in pre- cisely the condition it is now. Had not its energies been to some extent employed in defending its own life against its cormorant foes, its stockholders would undoubtedly have been a great deal nearer dividends than at the present time. The actual worth of its $86,000,000 of stock, per share, is double that of the lesser amount in existence years ago, for the road is now one of the most complete, well equipped, well organ- ized and efficient Railways in the world. There is a moral and physical grandeur about it, as it now is, which commands both homage and admiration, l^o man in his senses can behold the " Grand Trunk" and branches, owned and operated by it, amounting to nearly or quite 1,500 miles ; its steel rail ; its hundreds of miles of double track ; its substantial aqueducts, tunnels and bridges ; its magnificent ofiSces, ferry boats, docks, depots, sleeping and palace cars ; its numberless locomotives, passenger and freight trains ; its model conductors and crowds of faithful, intelligent and gentlemanly officials, and then stig- matize its whole-souled and indefatigable managers as archi- tects of ruin. We hail them as noble benefactors of their race, worthy to be called " Railway Princes ;" the pioneers of safe, expeditious, comfortable and luxurious American Railway travel and rapid commercial transportation. The public owe them, whether living or dead, a debt of gratitude, to be paid in something beside obloquy and denunciation. The Erie Railway has redeemed almost one-half of the State from a comparative wilderness to a condition of prosperity, wealth and plenty, and added millions on millions to the basis of State taxation ; and any of the many thriving cities and vil- lages that have sprung up to importance and opulence under its life-inspiring influences, whose citizens do not stand by it through evil report and through good, deserve the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sunken cities of the plain. 55 But we have no fears ; Jay Gould, Dr. Edwin Eldridge, Henry Sherwood, and many other able men still live. The Erie Eailway^ under its present Management, will be sustained The death of James Fisk, Jr., one of its truest, ablest and most indomitable friends, does not endanger it. Vituperation of him was the capital stock which its enemies counted on for their possession of the coveted prize, and its Management for their personal ends and gains. His death, though deeply lamented by his associates, and all the true friends of the road, disarms the conspirators, and makes their scheme of possession and plunder more hopeless than before. The public realize that in their hands the road would not only fail to pay divi- dends hereafter, but would relapse again into neglect and decay, while it is very generally believed that, under the pres- ent Management, now that it has acquired every facility for business, progress, economical operation and success — includ- ing extensive coal mines, machine, repair, bridge and car shops, etc. — it will pay off its floating debt, extinguish all other liar bilities and become a dividend-paying road much sooner than in foreign hands, or under the direction and control of foreign influence. It has had a strange and eventful past, it enjoys a grand and promising present, and is destined to achieve a glo- rious future. From the Genesee Valley M-ee Press, (Eepublican,) Jan. 34. HANDS OFF!' The New York Tribune, in many respects the ablest and most powerful newspaper in the world, has, nevertheless, its weak points like less pretentious and more humble journals, and sometimes exhibits a degree of hatred and malignity sadly out of keeping with its claims to fairness and exalted respec- tability. The objects of its envenomed assaults, just now, a're the Erie Eailway and its Management ; and notwithstanding the fiict that a large proportion of its friends and partizans in this State are the sturdy Eepublican farmers of the Southern Tier of counties, to whom such assaults are distasteful in the extreme, 66 it shows no abatement of its hostility, but persists in its foolish and bitter attacks as if the welfare of the nation were involved in the scheme to place the Erie Railway in the hands of foreign speculators in stocks. While Fisk was living, the Tribune almost daily teemed with glaring details of his alleged private frailties and vices ; and every real or imaginary wrong which he committed was ostentatiously paraded in its columns, and charged to the account of the entire Board of Erie Directors. Nor has this sort of disgraceful warfare terminated with his untimely and violent death. With the brutality that ought to shame a hyena, that paper has continued to howl over his grave, and his faults, which should be forgotten and forgiven now, have been constantly dragged before the public as if in justification not only of his murder, but of any other extreme measures which might be adopted to wrest the Erie Kailway from the hands of those who control it. Its ambition just now seems to be to induce the Legislature to interfere in the affairs of this road to such an extent as to compel the relinquishment of its Management by Jay Gould and his associates, and place that thoroiighfare, and the people along its line, at the mercy of English stockholders and Wall street birds of prey. It is not our purpose, and neither is it our business, to inquire who owns the stock of the Erie Railway. The question as to the right of property is one which neither the Press nor Legis- latures have any business to meddle. If fraud has been perpe- trated, or robbery committed, the courts of this State are the proper tribunals to right the wrong and punish the evil-doers. But, so far as special legislation is concerned, we but speak the earnest sentiments of the entire population of the Southern Tier of counties when we say, " Gentlemen of the Legislature ! keep your hands aloof from the magnificent Railway to which, under its present enlightened and matchless Management, we are largely indebted for our rapid development, prosperity and wealth. We ask no change, and least of all such a change as you would give us !" 57 From the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, (Republican,) Jan. 25. The building of the Erie Eailway was one of the great events of the age. Nothing of equal magnitude in this country, unless we except the Erie Canal, has been consummated or even pro- jected. Its construction added much to the development of the great west ; while no section felt its results so directly as did that large part of the State of New York known as the Southern Tier of counties. It opened up a large and fertile region, entirely undeveloped, and isolated from aU railroad advantages. Thousands of acres which had hitherto been valueless were at once brought into the market at good prices, when numberless villages and thriving cities attested the effects which the completion of this great thoroughfare had, in their rapid growth and importance. The city of New York poured its treasury lavishly into the work, while the State, through the Legislature, at first loaned, but afterward gave, three mil- lions of dollars in aid of the impoverished treasury. Along its whole line all classes strained their finances to the utmost to insure the completion of the gigantic undertaking. It is now nearly twenty-one years since the first train passed from Piermont (its then eastern terminus) over its entire length to the shores of Lake Erie, having on board the President and Cabinet of the United States, the Governors of several States, Senators and Members of Congress, with a large concourse of representative men. Its completion added largely to the wealth and taxable property of the State, while its own mis- management, caused by the almost yearly change of Directors, kept its finances in a continued embarrassment. No great progressive line of policy could be adopted by the Directors ; or, if adopted, was ended in its incipiency at the annual elec- tion of directors, by the stock manipulations of Broad street, bringing to the surface a new set to manage its affairs for the ensuing year. Year after year it continued to be the foot-ball of schemers and itinerant speculators ; no improvements were made; no great far-reaching extensions were projected; its cars and machinery became dilapidated and worn out, and an empty treasury, with a loss of credit, placed it in the hands of a receiver. Legislative aid, with a new set of directors and 8 68 projected connections with other roads, seemed for a while to infuse new life into its Management, but the constant change consequent upon the whims of its ever-changing stockholders, whose sole intent was to make the largest amount possible in the shortest time, without regard to what it might be made by a system of wise and comprehensive management, rendered abortive any settled plan to improve its condition, or to de- velop any of those great and advantageous connections, which have, within the past four years, so materially improved its finances, and given it a stability unsurpassed by any other road in the country. By a wise, judicious and comprehensive policy, carried out by the same men who projected them, its branches extend now into almost the entire coal, iron and agricultural regions of New York and Pennsylvania, besides its own gauge connec- tions with the "West. With nearly one thousand miles added to its original length it has brought into contact with the teem- ing world vast regions whose people have realized the luxuries and blessings of civilization, while their mines and agricultural products have found an outlet and a market over its various branches. At the same time nearly five hundred miles of steel rails, hundreds of new and powerful locomotives, freight cars by the thousand, with an abundance of comfortable and gor- geous passenger and sleeping coaches, and a road-bed unsur- passed by any in the United States, have confirmed the wisdom and far-sighted pohcy of the present Management. For those who are familiar with and have watched its prog- ress from year to year it is unnecessary to say that the stability given to its Management by what is known as the " Classifica- tion Act," is the great secret and power that has accomplished so satisfactory results. Perhaps no law has ever been so causelessly and bitterly assailed as this ; partially through ignorance o± what were its effects, but mostly by the impotent ravings of stock-jobbers and swindling adventurers, whose most ardent longings run to fill their pockets from the plethoric treasury instead of expending it upon those great works and improve- ments, which of themselves will, in the future, be a monument to the wisdom of their projectors. A more detailed history of the motives of the opponents of this law is not at present our 59 pm-pose, but to demonstrate the fact that the " Classification Act " was the first power that gave permanency to the Manage- ment of the Erie Kailway and developed its immense resources while no rights are withheld from those who may, from year to year; be in possession of its stock. In the first place, the State of New York, that gives its three millions, and the thousands of representatives along the line of the road who impoverished themselves to aid in its construc- tion, but have no voice in the election of Directors, have a great and vital interest in the stability of its government ; and to-day, this large and not despicable interest is opposed to any change that shall make its Management less stable. Their united testi- mony is, that under the present law the road has become strong, prosperous and useful, while a return to the old system would be continually changing its Managers, destroying its perma- nency, and render useless any attempt to carry out any great plan of improvement. From the fact that it takes, tmder the act mentioned, at least three years to radically change the plans and improvements contemplated, lies the great want of its present prosperity. The cry that the owners or State job- bers who may happen to have in their hands a controlling amount of the stock, "are deprived of their rights," is the veriest bosh. They have the same rights as ever, and can so exercise them at the next annual meeting to elect Directors, but not to so great and destructive degree as formerly. At the first election a majority elect to fill the places of the outgoing Directors, at the next election tiie same, and so at the third, at which time, with barely two years having passed, and the par- ties owning the stock, the control has gone into their hands by having three-fifths of the Board of Directors ; while at the same time the change has been so gradual, no written plan or line of improvement has been disturbed. Directors elected from year to year have become familiar with the details of the busi- ness of the road, and knowing that no violent or sudden change could be made, have interested themselves in its business and its future prosperity. ISTo owner or stockholder has been deprived of any rights, but has come into the gradual posses- sion of them, in such a way as not to injure the immense corporation of which he is at best but the temporary custodian. 60 We believe in the general doctrine that the owner has the right to the benefit of his own property, but the law has wisely stepped in, and in all civilized countries provided how those rights shall be exercised. In this case the Legislature of the State, representing millions of money in the Erie Eailway, but exercising no voice in the election of Directors, has come to the rescue and very appropriately said to those speculators in stocks : " You assume to be the owners of the road, if so, you shall exercise that right, but not in such a violent manner, or to put in jeopardy the unprotected interests of the State and the large minority who can have no representation in your board of directors." This is sound argument, and is in accord with almost all laws for the government of corporations and municipalities in this country, from the general government down to the most insignificant village corporation. In other words, change in rulers or managers shall, to be beneficial and not hurtful, be gradual, not violent. "We do not, at this time, propose to argue the policy of allowing foreigners to manage the aifairs of the Erie Eailway, but if the theory of those urging the repeal of the Classification Act is correct, then the moment any man or set of men can show that he or they have, a majority of the stock in his or their possession, the acting directors must immediately vacate and allow a new set, however unfitted by experience, and whatever their nationality, to assume their duties ; and this as often as the wheel of stock-jobbers could bring a new deal to the surface, one day an American board, the next month a set of Englishmen, to be followed by its weekly or monthly changes by Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians or any nationality that might happen to hold the stock. The whole theory is too foolish for a moment's consideration, but it is precisely the substance of their whole argument. The " Classification Act " was conceived and enacted for the benefit of the road. Under its wise provisions, as we have shown, the interests of the Erie Railway have extended to a degree far beyond the most sanguine hopes of its warmest friends. Its managers possess the confidence of all classes in business, and of the traveling public; and to-day were it not for the handfull of jobbers who are endeavoring to grasp its treasury and enrich 61 themselves regardless of the improvements and iiltimate perfec- tions of the road, which the present Directors have in contem- plation, the work already accomplished would place those who have so ably managed its interests in the front rank of public benefactors. — While we would do justice to all, however great or small may be their claims, we have yet to learn that the Classification Act is the means of wronging any one, but on the other hand, is the direct cause of the present prosperity of the Erie Kailway and its unsurpassed Management. From the Elmira Daily Advertiser, (Republican,) Jan. 36. Petitions are now pouring into the legislature, asking it to save the Erie Railway from British monopoly. * * « The Legislature must receive the papers, as they come in the form of petitions from the people ; but if there are millions of names on them, they are not worth the ink with which they are written. Millions in the wrong weigh no more than an individual, in the scale of justice. — Troy Times. So hints the Troy Times in relation to the Erie Kailway. And why are these names, though there be millions, not worth the ink with which they are written ? Because, if we under- stand the reasoning of the Times, they are not the names of stockholders in the road. It follows, therefore, by the same reasoning, that if all the stock of the Erie Eailway were concen- trated in the hands of one man, he would have the absolute right to do with it as he chose, regardless of the petitions of milhons of the people. We apprehend the Tim£s is not prepared to assert so broad a doctrine as that. But, if one man may not thus domineer with his property over the wishes of the million, neither may a hundred or a thousand, having the same property divided between them. Is the Troy Tim^s the owner of stock in the Erie Kailway ? If not, pursuing its own logic, by what right does it assume either to petition or remonstrate in relation to the Erie ? If the people living upon its line, because they are not stockholders, shall not speak, how shall the Troy Times, three hundred miles away, venture to open its mouth ? If the names of the "millions" of people in the Southern Tier of 62 counties are not worth the ink with which they are written, pray tell us of what value are the words of this newspaper in Rensselaer county ? No. That argument won't answer. The voice of the people whose interests are especially at stake in the management and control of the Erie Eailway is of consequence, and the Legislar ture will make a grievous mistake if it fails to heed it. This Eailway is not a private corporation. It is not owned, as a horse is owned, by any man or any set of men. It is not a farm to be worked exclusively for the profit of him who holds the fee simple. It is public property in which the people of this State have an interest of three millions of doUars. It is an avenue of trade and traffic in which those people who live along its line have secured a vested right. By the right of eminent domain it has driven its locomotives through private door yards and planted its depots in the midst of the shade trees of sacred homes. The recompense for this is the right which inheres in the people to have a voice in the method of its conduct. Nay, more, that voice shall be paramount. No stockholder shall use this property to the detriment or injury of the people. It is not his for any such purpose or to any such extent. He owns his stock in this road just as a citizen owns a government bond. If it pays him an interest he is entitled to receive it. If it does not, he is entitled to go with- out it. He has a right, as all the people have, because it is public property, to know that it is honestly and properly managed. He has no right, in opposition to the wishes of the people, to run it as a saw-mill is run for the sole pui'pose of getting a profit. There is a difference wide as the world between a stockholder in a private and a public corporation. In the one case the property may go to ruin and no one is injured save the stockholders themselves. In the other the ruin of the property is the ruin of the people. The stock which the people have in this road embraces all their wealth, and the dividends which they shall receive is a matter of public concern. It is their property held in trust for them by those who manage it. "What per cent it pays in money those who hold its certificates are entitled to draw. But this is the least of all the great purposes to which it is destined. Before it 63 shall enrich individuals it must first enrich the community, This shall be done by using the money which the people place in its coffers to provide the highest class of accommodation for the public traffic. Every thing which is needed for the public safety and for the public convenience shall first be provided. The public have a right at least to petition the Legislature as to how this shall be done and by what management. If, after long years of patient sufferance, they at last find this road the peer of any road on the continent, with a road-bed unsurpassed and an equipment unequaled, they have a right to say they are satisfied and do not want a change. If John Bull has taken his chance to invest his money in Erie stocks at twenty cents on a dollar, it is no hardship for him to take it out again at forty, and he ought to wait a long time before he is permitted to take a ten per cent dividend on it at par. If there is any qiiestion of morality involved in this matter it does not behoove one of these desperate gamblers in railway stocks to set it up. Such people can get no standing in court on that ground. Let them be content to speculate in the stock in the spirit wherewith they bought it, but let them set up no claim to run the road except as the people are willing it should be run. Let us have the Railway in steady and permanent hands. Let its Management not only be an American man- agement but a local management. Let its stock go whither it will — let those hold it who choose to buy — but let the road go steadily on in the hands of the men who have been the first to demonstrate a capacity which has given it a commanding posi- tion and the confidence of the people. Let the Legislature indulge in no special laws for the benefit of private individuals. What it would not do for its own citizens, let it especially avoid for non-resident aliens. If English investors are not sat^ isfied with this principle let them cease to be investors. Let them sell out, as they can do, at a handsome profit, to others who will be glad to buy. The Erie Railway has had enough of contention and strife. It is entitled to be let alone. The people who have cast their bread upon the waters along its track are entitled to be let alone. Their voice is entitled to respect from the Legislature. Their interest is one of peace, and the public prosperity and security. They do not care for 64 the plaints of stock-jobbers and money gamblers, and they do not want the management of their road to be a foot-ball in the marts of "Wall street, or a prey to the mercies of the Legisla- ture. They ask deliverance from both. They ask the privilege of being left to the undisturbed enjoyment of the benefits they have finally secured. They ask the right to be protected from the great calamity which wiU certainly befall them when this great highway shall pass under the control of foreign managers. The fate of other lines which have been thus cursed is a warning to them, and whether they be millions or thousands their voice is unanimous in remonstrance against this contemplated wrong. From tte Allegany County Reporter, (Eepublican,) Jan. 37. CLASSIFICATION ACT. The so-called Classification Act of the New York Legislature, about which there has been such a hue and cry raised, prin- cipally by the foreigners who owned a portion of the stock of the Erie Railway, is a general law, and the benefits arising therefrom, if there are any, can be made available by other railroad companies throughout the State. As matters now stand, any combination against the present Management of the Erie Eailway has its origin with foreign capitalists, who are seeking to put this great thoroughfare into the hands of men who have no community of thought, action or property with the citizens of this State, nor, in fact, of the United States. It is of the greatest importance to us who live on the line of the Erie Railway that it should be in the hands of men who have a common interest in the growth and prosperity of the section of country through which the road passes, and the Management that makes the road subservient to the interests and rights of the people is what is wanted by the people. The same may be said of any great corporation that owes its existence to the will of the people. The State of New York has an interest of $3,000,000 or more ia the Erie, and to-day. from New York bay to the Lakes, there is a general feeling of satisfaction all along the line with the present condition and management of the road. "What it has been is well known to most of our people, especially those who had occasion to ride over the road five or six years ago. Rotten rails, rickety cars, and wheezy engines was then the order of the day, and every through train needed to carry a retiaue of surgeons, nurses, undertakers and coffins, to accommodate the traveling public. ISTow there can be no fault found, with the road itself, or its Management. Then it was a nuisance, now it is a bles- sing. That these are facts no man will pretend to deny. l^Tow let us look at the moral side of the question. During the fight over the Erie, no man or class of men put forth greater efforts to break up the so-called Erie Eitig than Com- modore Yanderbilt, and other magnates of the same stripe. And, had he succeeded, the Erie would have had to-day, none of its significance and grandeur, but would have been in the hands of a ITew York Central monopoly, whose very name has been for years the synonym of social aristocracy, and political despotism. Had he and his cotemporaries succeeded in their undertaking, the result would have had and carried, all through passengers and freight, and done aU the first class business there was to be done, while the Erie would have carried oil and coal, and perhaps hogs in warm weather when the hog cholera was prevalent. Now, did this millionaire and would-be dictator act from any good impulse, and was his cast iron con- science troubled by the wickedness and corruption of Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr. ? One single act of his showed how he desired to ameliorate the condition of affairs, and that was the refasal of the New York Central to allow the Erie to cross then- track, in order to reach Niagara Falls, and connect with the Canada raiboads. This little transaction alone showed the cloven foot of the enemy, and what they would do if they could. There is no proof of any higher moral object displayed by any of the clamoring crew to-day, than there was in the action of Com- modore Vanderbilt. The question comes home to every farmer, every mechanic, and every laboring man, and every property holder on the line of the road, "Do we want to change the present rule and Management for an experiment?" 9 "We have seen experiments tried and know how signally they have failed. We have seen the road in the hands of companies and receivers, changing its name and responsibility, as often as the chameleon changes its hues, and now that we have a good road is not that all we want, and can the public afford to take any chances on a genei'al tearing up of a wise policy ? If as a natural result there are individuals who suffer, is it not better thus than that great public interests should be sacrificed ? This is no question of policy with us, but means business, and every man who has the prosperity of the Southern Tier counties of this State at heart, will favor any policy that will tend to sus- tain the present able Management of the Erie Eailway. From tie Dansville Advertiser, (Eepublican,) Jan. 37. It is amusing and instructive to see our brethern of the Press on the Central line, and some of the city papers, engage so earnestly in what is a simple fight between the Ins and Outs of the Erie Railway. The truth is, a lot of Jews in London have formed a combination, and, having purchased a large amoiint of stock, they made a pool of it, and sent it over to transfer to one of their party or clique, who had instructions to sell the vote, at the last election, to the Commodore, who, with envious eyes, viewed the Erie as a nice morsel to gobble up, and thus fence in the great West, and leave shippers at his mercy. People on the Central line were alarmed, for their only hope was the healthful competition afforded by the Erie. These Jews tried a neat little game on Jay Gould, and were beaten at their own game. What has the public to do with this ? Nothing. As long as the Erie is well managed, and is as popular along the line as it now is — as long as the public is served — our brethren of the Press and Legislature should understand that it is beneath their dignity to interfere in what is really a private quarrel. 67 The courts are open to litigants. There is no wrong withont a remedy, and there is no railway ia America so popular as the Erie. Give them fair play. From the New York Herald, (Independent,) Jan. 29. The contest at Albany, just now, over the Erie Railway, is between rival parties for the control of that important line of communication. The burden of the arguments raised to influ- ence the Legislature one way or the other is based upon the private claims of individuals. A good deal is said about the interests of the public, for effect ; but, really, no one thinks or cares about them. All the fuss about repealing the so-called Classification Act is simply a fight for the control of the Erie Railway among the parties interested. Certain foreigners who bought up the Atlantic and Great "Western railroad, found that this road did not pay vrithout connecting its business and interests with the Erie, and, therefore, purchased stock in the Erie, with a view to getting hold of the Management, so as to make the latter supply the deficiencies of the former. With- out goiug into details as to the history of this movement, or of the coquetting and attempt at bargaining between the two companies, this is the gist of the original difficulty. The Erie Managers, to use a colloquial expression, did not see it, and, witli-a view to the interest of the Erie Railway, as well, perhaps, as with a view to their own interest and power, they have pre- vented the foreign owners of the Atlantic and Great Western controlling the Erie. These latter, consequently, apply, as stockholders in the Erie, to the Legislature, for the repeal of the Classification Act, in order to depose the present Managers of that road. Though much might be said of the improve- ment of the Erie Railway under the present Management, and against placing one of the greatest lines of commerce and commimication in the country under the control of foreigners, this is after all, only a war of railroad factions, and goes to show the necessity of some general and comprehensive law recrulating these great works. 68 From tte Penn Yan Mispress, (Republican,) Jan. 31. Durmg the past ten or twelve days petitions have been flowing in an almost steady stream upon our State Legislature, asking that the present Management of the Erie Eailway may be let severely alone. These petitions seem to emanate from all parts of the State, but more largely from the Southern Tier Counties along the line of that great thoroughfare. Eecent events have transpired which gives to the contest between the Managers of the road and the English stockholders quite a changed aspect. The removal from the Board of Directors of James Fisk, Jr., and Wm. M. Tweed, takes from its Manage- ment its most objectionable features, and must remove the cause for the most formidable opposition. While such a man as Tweed had any thing to do with the concern, we do not wonder that people had no confidence in the administra- tion of its affairs. "While we cannot see why the Erie should not be subject to the same laws that other roads are, nor why there should have been any special legislation for its benefit, we can readily see why the happenings of the past few weeks should inspire in the minds of the people a good degree of confidence that the Erie will In the fature be managed with a view to the interests of the owners of the road as well as the traveling public. Dr. Eldridge, of Elmira, one of the Directors of the Erie, is a gentleman largely identified with the interests of the Southern Tier. We have never heard a breath of suspicion against his integrity as a citizen or as a business man. Hon. Henry Sherwood, of Corning, is the recently elected Director in the place of Wm. M. Tweed. He, too, is identified with the interests of this section of the State, and has had large experience in railroad matters. His selection as a Director of the Erie is a fortunate circumstance considering the suspicion with which some of the late managers were regarded. Mr. Sherwood is President of the railroad company which will soon have the iron track streched across Yates County. As a Director of Erie we can readily see how his position may fairly advance the interests of the Sodus and Coming road, and consequently result in benefit to Tates County. 69 Prom the Elmira Haily Adwrtiser, Jan. 31. "WHO OWNS THE ERIE EAILWAY. Why prevent the road from passing under the control of a British Mon- opoly ? If Englishmen own the road may American swindlers confiscate it? If this principle is to he established, what hope have we that the capital of foreigners will he invested in enterprises in our country ? Every patriotic American citizen makes it a point to assert that the national debt shall be scrupulously paid. Shall foreign capitalists be treated any diflfer- ently when they build railroads, or canals, or factories or other under- takings ? — Troy limes. We propose to answer these questions in detail. "Wliy prevent the road from passing under the control of a British Monopoly ? " Because American interests will suffer thereby. If asked what American iaterests, we answer the interests of the American business men and citizens who live along the route. It is impossible that a Railway, Hke the Erie, controlled by a monopoly three thousand miles away in a foreign land, can adequately meet the wants and requirements of the peo- ple. It is not in the nature of American citizens to be willing subjects of foreign masters. We repeat again, that no man and no set of men own this road as a horse is owned. It can- not be so owned. It is public property in which the people have a direct interest, in the management of which they have a right to express both opinions and wishes. With their usual regard for truth and fairness, the New York papers are representing that the people who have signed the remonstrances against placing the Erie Railway iu the hands of British Monopolists are employees of the road. If the whole population of the Southern Tier of counties are employees of the road then that allegation may be true. But if true it proves too much, for if all the people who have signed these papers are directly dependent on the Erie Railway for bread then their right to speak cannot certainly be denied. The interest of the British stockholders is only for a dividend on invested wealth, while the interest of these people is for actual subsistence. But the allegation is not true, and the papers know it which make it. If there ever was a unanimity of sentiment on the part of any people, that unanimity exists on this subject in the counties through which the Erie Railway passes. Let the man 70 or the legislator wlio doubts this averment come here and see. Such a test is all .we ask, and will convince the most sceptical that it is not a wise policy to turn this road over to any gang of money vultures in England. If there were no other reason the one of sentiment would be sufficient. But the reason that the public interests of a whole community are directly involved is overwhelming. No private interests of foreign investors can weigh for a moment against the public interests of the American people. If the road in the broadest sense were private property this rule would be good. But as public prop- erty it admits of no question or argument. "If Englishmen own the road, may American swindlers confiscate it ? " If Englishmen did " own " the road, then we should make bold to say that American Legislation had per- mitted a grievous blunder in consenting to such an ownership. But they do not own the road and they cannot own it. The most they can possibly own are the locomotives and cars. The real estate, the land upon which the track is laid, the depots, the machine shops, the superstructure, belong to no Englishman. No Englishman can hold fee simple in an inch of American soil. If, then, they don't own the road, why talk about confis- cating their "property." It is not their, property. The stock which they hold is their property. If this stock pays them a dividend, all well. If not, and they don't like it, let them sell it. There is no law against that, and besides they can make fortunes in the operation. But, says the Times, "every patriotic American citizen makes it a point to assert that the national debt shall be scru- pulously paid, and foreign capitalists must not be treated any differently when they build railroads, or canals, or factories, or other undertakings." Yes, the national debt must be scrupu- lously paid, but it does not follow that because some part of this debt is held in England, that, therefore. Englishmen " own " the American government, or shall control its administration. The bonds they hold they bought of their own free will as a good investment. "Whenever they tire of holding them they are at liberty to sell them. If they get an advance they are lucky. If they don't they are unlucky. Pray, let us ask, if Englishmen are not allowed to control our government, what 71 hope will tliere be that tliey will purchase American securities ? Let tliem set up such a claim and see how soon tlie American people will say " give us back our bonds and we will take care of them. We took them all when they were issued, because we believed in our government and were bound to maintain it. We are willing j'on should hold them, it' you desire, as an investment, but we scout your claim of ownership over us in consequence." If Englishmen cannot own and control our government because they have purchased its bonds, neither can they own and control in detail the institutions and public works of our country because they have invested in the stocks. The constitution and laws of our State make it impossible for even a resident alien to own real property here, so jealous are our people of foreign control. Much less should a "Monopoly" of Englishmen, living at home, be allowed to own a tract of land stretching from the Lakes to the Hudson. We have shown that they do not and cannot. What, then, becomes of the daun that the owners of the road are kept from the enjoyment of their property ? Where is the basis of the crocodile sym- pathy which certain papers manifest for the money kings of England ? Gone, we take it, where the woodbine twiueth, or some other place of equally indefinite locality. But it may be said in answer to this that in one case the investment is in bonds and the other in stock. True, that sophis- try may be m-ged, but where is the difference in principle? The theory is in objection to British ownership in American interests. And smce under the laws of the country all that the British subject can by any possibility own is what he can cany in his pocket or on his person, since there can be no pretense that he has property in land, there can be no distinction in this case between a bond and a certificate of stock. Each is a bit of paper and is sunply evidence that money has been invested. To an American there may be a difference, biit to an Enghsh- man there can be none. He can have no interest whatever in the fixed estate of this country. He cannot acquire it du-ectly, and therefore it is settled that he cannot acquire it indirectly. Nothing is more certain in fact and in law than that no com- bination of Englishmen own the Erie Kailway. Addressing ourselves to the members of the Legislature we 72 say that it is their duty to pay heed to the voice of their American constituents. It is their duty to prevent this great American highway from falling under foreign control. The claim of ownership having fallen to the ground there is no other claim which can stand for a moment. And if ownership did actually vest, as it does not and cannot, in these Englishmen, then it would be the duty of the Legislature to exercise the par- amount right of public protection and save such a highway fi'om so fatal a domination. The Remonstrances which are on the tables of members express the intelligent and independent wishes and sentiments of that great body of citizens of this State who are directly concerned in the Management of this magnificent road. They have acted with deliberation and with a fall knowledge of all the circumstances of the case. They are the farmers, the merchants, the lawyers, the manufacturers, the business men, the working men of Southern New York. They are the people. They are the real owners of this road which was built in their name and for their benefit. If there be those who would wrench it from them, and subject them to the tyranny of a foreign domination, let no member of an hon- est and patriotic legislature join hands with the sordid coalition. The road is now conducted in such a manner that the people are satisfied, and beyond that it is not the province of legisla- tion to inquire. Prom the Genesee Valley Pree Press, (Republican,) Jan. 31. SEISTD ON TBDE EEMONSTEANCES ! Every friend of the Erie Eailway — every citizen of the Southern Tier of counties — every one who is opposed to legislative interference with the present management of this road — should promptly sign the remonstrance against such interference, and personally see that the remonstrance so signed is placed at once in the hands of his representative in the Senate or Assembly. "We want no more ruinous, stock-job- 78 bing, Vanderbilt performanGes with our Eailway. We want it to remain as it is, and where it is — under the control of Jay Gould and his associates — who have, by their wise and liberal Management, transformed it from a rickety and unsafe road, into one. of the safest, best, busiest and most popular thorough- fares in the world. Again we say — sign and send on the remonstrances, and thus avert an impending calamity ! From the Havana Journal, (Republican,) Jan. 31. "We deny that Gould is now kept in his place, or that he can be by legislative power, against the will of the majority ; and we deny that legislative power can properly remove him from the place where a majority of stock has placed him, under the forms of law. If the Classification Act should be repealed to-morrow, Gould could not be displaced until the next annual election, nor any other member of the board. There is no pos- sible way to displace the present Management of the Erie by legislation but to pass an act, in addition to the proposed repeal of the Classification Act, to disqualify the present Board from holding oflSce — in other words to outlaw them — deprive them of all rights of liberty and property, and when this is attempted the courts will protect them. " This is the whole question m a nut-shell," and the repeal of the Classification Act is but the pre- tense — the entering wedge — to a more monstrous legislative outrage. Even admitting for the sake of argument that there was an object in view on the part of the Erie Management when the " Classification Act" was passed, and that it blocked a sharp game then being played by the " old heads" in and out of "Wall street, it does not follow that it would be either politic or just to repeal that act now, after it has stood on the Statute Book nearly three yea/rs, and been completely woven into the vigorous and admirable management of the greatest Eailway iti the State. Does any sane man doubt that if it could be repealed, and by virtue of such repeal the present Management be at once displaced, the effect would be anything but paralyz- 10 74 ing and demoralizing to the road, and an irreparable injury to the public ? Its stock would stiU further decline in the mar- ket ; confusion inevitably ensue ; its future, now full of prom- ise, become darkly clouded, and too late its legislative destroyers realize the fatal mistake into which they had been betrayed. Date Due uifi»cf APR 8 13 X 1 APH'-iS ,960^^" '^* -fiiP e|. 'i'i^9!ri»^'*fL- r— ^^ 5^j*^H^lSS y^T "-^^sM WW*^*" m^ d^F • \l "- noo' i no ^glf^ i^^fTO ' iigjjr ii^ IPJ*'' •■ PRINTED IN U. S. A, (OJ CAT. NO. 23233 m