Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Gerrit Smith to Alvin Bronson : rail roads.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 541

GERRIT SMITH TO ALVIN BRONSON.

RAIL ROADS.

Hon. ALVIN BRONSON, Oswego,

MY DEAR SIR,

Just as I was leaving Oswego last Friday, you kindly permitted me to hear your letter from Mr. Talcott. I entirely agree with him that there should be an immediate Organization for the building of the Lake Shore Rail Road. Oswego has no East and West travel. But with this Road she would have a share of it. The commerce of the Road, too, could not fait to be considerable: and it is not unreasonable to hope that it might be very large. Highly advantageous to Oswego would be her connexion, by means of this Road, with Portland - that beautiful city, which is a clay nearer than New York to England; which has the best harbor on our Atlantic coast ; and is unequalled in facilities for transhipping property. Not, however, with Portland only will this Road connect Oswego, but with Boston also, as soon as she shall have extended her Hoosic Tunnel Road to Oswego. So, too, would this Road from its connexion with the roads leading from her to New York be of great value to your city. Nor should the importance to her of the connexion of this Road with the soon to-be completed road from Little Sodus Southward be overlooked.

Should there be the proposed Organization, you will please take stock in it for me to the amount of three thousand dollars: and should the adopted route of the Road be that, which is best calculated to secure the through travel and trade, or, in other words, be the shortest and levellest, I shall, probably, increase my subscription to twenty thousand dollars. Let me here say that, I trust, there will be great pains to prevent such a misunderstanding amongst the subscribers for stock in this Road, as unhappily exists amongst the subscribers for stock in the Midland Road. Many of us, who subscribed for stock in the latter, understood that the Road, however it might thereby affect or be affected by intermediate localities, was, nevertheless, to be built upon a route which, in respect to surface and length, would be the best one. We understood that the one great object in building it was to open to the produce of the Great West an avenue to the City of New York cheaper than any other, which there was or could be in the State of New York. But it turns out that others had a different understanding. The Directors, at least, had. This is manifest from their selecting between Hamilton and Fulton, which are only some fifty or sixty miles apart, a route that is ten miles longer, and far less level, than the shortest route. It is not strange that the merchants and mechanics of Oswego are pleased with this unexpected selection. It will, undoubtedly, somewhat increase their business :- only, however, in case Syracuse shall not build her long-contemplated road into the Eastern part of Oswego County. For one, I never suspected that the Midland Road was to be turned aside for the benefit of any interests, even for those of Oswego. By the way, is it not amazing that your City can, as a whole, consent to this "penny-wise and pound-foolish" policy ? - this policy of foregoing, for the sake of a little more trade with a handful of her neighboring population, the boundless benefit of having the shortest possible route for the trade of the Great West with the City of New York? Surely, surely, Oswego would not act in this matter, as she now does, were the Niagara Ship Canal already in process of construction. But it is soon to be; and Oswego should shape herself, not to her petty present, but to her large future.

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Oswego seems not to be adequately impressed either with the vastness and, for generations to come, increasing vastness, of the surplus produce of the Great West, or with the sharp competition, which is to be waged for that greatest commercial prize the world ever knew. In their hot pursuit after their hoped-for shares of this prize, will be found (to say nothing of Mississippi Cities) Montreal, Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Norfolk. Not one of these competitors will consent, for any object, however great or golden, to lengthen the distance between herself and this prize by so much as a single mile: But poor deluded Oswego consents to, nay, rejoices in, the lengthening, by ten miles in one instance, of the Road, which is to lead through herself from New York to this prize. And all this, too, for the sake of comparatively nothing. Alas, that she should be so mole-eyed! Alas, that even our old and esteemed friend Littlejohn, usually so large - as well as clearsighted, should now be expatiating, before audiences kindled by his magnetic eloquence, upon the immense advantage of turning aside the Midland Road some ten miles in order to reach a lot of cord-wood, a few sawmills, tanneries and glass factories ! Who would have expected to find him amongst the little men, that "hold at the spigot whilst it runs at the bung?" How differently, do Massachusetts and Mr. Littlejohn view things ? She, in order to shorten the distance from her Boston to the Great West by only some twenty to thirty miles, and to reduce her grades by only about as many feet, is expending at least ten and probably full twenty mil lions upon a single tunnel. He, to reconcile us to this detour or deviation of ten miles in the Midland Road, gives us glowing descriptions of the splendid stores in Oneida.

Oswego is, always, wondering that, notwithstanding her great natural advantages, she does not grow faster. Her only wonder should be that, madly refusing as she does to avail herself of these advantages, she can grow, at all. What a piteous spectacle she presents at this moment ! For the sake of little benefits, that a little village might, indeed, make some account of, she is foregoing the grand opportunity of attracting to herself no small share of the produce of the vast and teeming West.

If the Midland Road is to be built for intermediate or way business, it should, of course, be built through Syracuse and Cazenovia, But if for through business, it should, as certainly, be built where shortness and levelness call for it. I was myself in favor of the Syracuse and Cazenovia route. But I could not be, after I saw its summit to be several hundred feet higher than the summit of an Eastern route, and its length several miles longer than that Eastern route. I am not unaware that the Midland Road will, in several respects, suffer great loss, or, to speak more correctly, forego great advantages, by not passing through the important and rapidly-growing City of Syracuse. One of the good effects of not passing through her is that it will come far less in competition with the Oswego and Syracuse Road - a Road to whose enterprising Directors Oswego owes so much - and especially for the direct and independent communication with New York, which they are now affording her. With this additional communication Oswego will be pretty well supplied with outlets, until the opening of the Niagara Ship Canal shall flood her and Ogdensburgh with Western produce.

Notwithstanding the immodesty of arraying my judg-

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ment against that of the Directors of the Midland Road, I cannot doubt that, in choosing the route for a part of the Road, they have fallen into a great error. With pleasure do I learn from them that, every where else, they have governed themselves by the principle of having the road as short and level as can be. May not, however, their wide departure from this principle in the present instance justify the apprehension that they may be tempted to deviate from the adopted route else where ? I think if they proceed to build the Road without having first corrected the great error in question, they will not be able to get subscriptions and loans sufficient to finish it. In this event the towns, which issue their Bonds, may not only have to pay them without help to this end from the Road - but, worse than this, there may, after all, be no Road.

I learn from the newspapers that Syracuse is shunned because she and the Towns of Onondaga County refuse to bond themselves. But if she is on the best route, then for no reason whatever should she be shunned. And this is true, not only in the light of fundamental justice, but also in the secondary view of obtaining means to build the Road. When present means for completing the Road shall be exhausted, subscriptions or loans to complete it on the right route could be obtained with ten fold more ease than to complete it on a wrong one. Just here comes to mind one of the numerous objections to this Town-bonding system. It is the strong temptation it presents to run the road after bonds, instead of laying it where the public good and, therefore, the ultimate interests of the stockholders require it to be laid. It is bad enough to coerce the minority into the issuing of the bonds. But worse than this is using the bonds to build the Road on a wrong, instead of on the right, route. This objection is nearly as great as is the facility in getting Towns to bond them selves for unworthy objects. An individual, when called on to subscribe for himself, is wont to be full of caution and calculation. But comparatively little of either has he, when he joins his thousand neighbors in subscribing for his Town. He will readily take risks for his Town, which he could never be induced to take for himself. The men of Oswego are willing to take for Oswego six hundred thousand dollars in the stock of the Midland Road, even though it go ten miles out of its way by going around the head of Oneida Bake. The same men, however, were each to subscribe on his own account, would not in the aggregate, take sixty thousand dollars in the stock of a Road so absurdly located. The Directors of the Midland Road are calling for individual subscriptions. I doubt whether of such subscriptions they will be able to get half of sixty thousand dollars in all Oswego.

I see, too, in the newspapers that the Road was given to Oneida on condition of her paying a sum of money for it - or, perhaps, taking an amount of stock in it. Such an act is, in principle, all one with selling at public auction, and striking off to the towns bidding highest for it, the right to locate the whole Road.

For about one year, I have had, as I thought, good reason to believe that the Midland Road would not be built where and as it should be: and, therefore, I have, during that time, taken but little interest in it. Indeed, during that time, I have believed that it were better to drop the project of the Midland Road until the building of the Niagara ship Canal should be authorized so apprehensive was I that the Midland Road would not be what it should be, if undertaken before the Canal.

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Scarcely will the construction of the Niagara Ship Canal have been commenced, ere will also have commenced the construction of a Rail Road from New, York across Chenango and Madison Counties to Oswego. It will be a Road far more substantial and expensive than the contemplated one. It will not be a Road zigzagging after Bonds - but the shortest there can be. The zigzagging Road would not remove, nor, at all, lessen the necessity of building the other. And when that other were built, what then would the zigzagging Road be worth to its stockholders ? The building of the crooked and hilly Southerly Road from Syracuse to Rochester did not do away the necessity of building the straight and level Northerly one. What could this Southerly Road be sold for to-day ? For not much more than the zigzagging Midland could be sold for after the building of a straight Midland.

I warmly desire to see both the Midland Road and the Lake Shore Road, provided each is built upon its true route. They would essentially help each other. Each would, in my judgment, very soon pay good dividends. I say very soon - for I expect that Congress will, at its next Session, under the joint demand of the East and the West, provide for the building of the Niagara Ship Canal.

I have spoken against this Town-bonding system. It is not, however, clear to me that it would be democratic and proper for the Constitution to forbid it. Much, however, as I dislike the system, I should be glad, in case Oswego shall bond herself for six hundred thousand dollars in aid of the Midland Road on the true route, to see her bond herself for four hundred thousand dollars in aid of the Lake Shore Road on the true route. I bad rather she would be under the load of a million of dollars, with one of these Roads to help the other, than bound to pay but six hundred thousand dollars, and having but one of these Roads to pay it with.

Allow me, if I shall not appear egotistical in it, to close with a personal matter. There is complaint in some quarters that I do not increase to twenty-five thousand dollars my subscription to the Midland Road. It is true that Mr. Littlejohn told me last year, that I must thus increase it. It is true too that, though I did not say that I would, I did not say that I would not. Nevertheless, I cannot see that, in any point of view, it is my duty to increase it. I admit that, had the proper route of the Road been adopted, I should, from the fact of my ownership of property in Oswego, be morally bound to make a large subscription to the stock of the Road. I should not in that case have objected to its being as large as twenty-five thousand dollars. But a grossly improper route having been chosen, I am, on the other hand, morally bound not to add to my subscription. Nothing in my stewardship must I be guilty of wasting: and I must not by adding to the subscription encourage others to waste their money upon this unwisely, nay wildly, located Road. I love the beautiful and very prosperous village of Oneida. She is now rejoicing in the Road. When the day of her disappointments and losses in it shall have come, she must not have it in her power to number me amongst those, who contributed by their example or influence to lead her into these disappointments and losses.

With the highest regard

your friend

GERRIT SMITH.