Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Town-bonding.

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 546

TOWN-BONDING.

To the Editors in Central New York,

Bear with me whilst I complain of you. Here are some eight or ten Counties, which, under the frenzy of this Town-bonding system, will, unless speedily cured of the frenzy, be loaded with a debt of, probably, more than as many millions of dollars. As, from year to year, the Tax-collectors shall wring from us the interest on this debt, we shall bitterly reproach our selves with the folly of having incurred it. Worse than this, our children and children's children will curse us for having entailed upon them a burden so cruel and so crushing. All this you see, or ought to see; all this oppression of the poor, of the widow and the orphan; all this discouragement and paralysis of individual industry by taxes unjustly imposed and too heavy to be borne, and all this blighting of the public prosperity under an overshadowing, appalling, withering debt; - all this, I say, you see or ought to see, and, yet, you sound out not one note of alarm, if, indeed, you do so touch as to utter one word of caution. Nay, instead of endeavoring to reduce this deep and wide-spread insanity, you are (with, certainly, very few exceptions) at work to stimulate and extend it.

But you will reply, that I have given too high a coloring to my picture, and that the earnings of these Bond-Railroads will pay nearly or all the interest of their cost. In some instances they may pay a pact of it - but in the aggregate a very small part of the interest of their total cost. Why do I say so ? Because, in the first place, instead of taking the direct and proper routes, they will, by their zigzagging after Town-Bonds, be both more expensive and less productive : because, in the second place, being so largely owned by Towns, there will be less vigilance and economy in building and managing them than if they were owned by individuals and because, in the third place, the competitive Railroads, being, so numerous, some of them will have but little, and others no, net income.

The Midland Railroad strikingly illustrates what I have said under the first head. In order to get Town Bonds, it goes wildly out of its way. In its sweep around Oneida Lake, and, withal, over a far less favorable surface, it adds some ten or twelve mites to the proper length of the Road. One of the ridiculous things about this ridiculous Road is the recent twisting of it uphill through the villages of Morrisville and Eaton, instead of rimming it direct to Hamilton. This is partly as ridiculous as is its starting off in the direction of Boston, the first thirty miles of its way from Oswego to New York. No illustration of what I have said under the second head is necessary. Every one knows how promotive of economy it is to have individual or self interest connected most directly, distinctly and effectively with these public enterprises. And, surely, no one will doubt the truth of my third position, who opens his eyes to the fact that here, in the space of some seventy miles East and West, where there are, already, several Town-Bond Railroads and several other Railroads leading to or toward New York, we are threatened with many more Town-Bond railroads - and, this too, notwithstanding the several Canals in this same space. I have not overstated the number of our present Roads. Beginning at the East, we have the two leading southwardly from Utica ; then that coming into Utica from the North; then the Rome and Watertown; then the Oswego and Home; then the Syracuse and Oswego; then the Syracuse and Binghamton; then the two Central Roads uniting at Syracuse ; and then the Fair Haven, Auburn and Owego Road, which will soon be finished. It is quite probable that a Town-Bond Road will soon be built from Rome to Clinton and another from Canastota Southwardly through Cazenovia. Possibly, the Auburn, DeRuyter and Norwich Road as well as other embryonic Roads within these seventy miles

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may come to the birth. Moreover, the building of the unhappy Midland Road is not yet given up, on all hands. With my whole heart I wish it were - and, especially, because Oswego can, hardly, take a step toward building the Road from herself to Lewiston, whilst the threat of bonding her for six hundred thousand dollars in aid of the Midland hangs over her. And this Road to Lewiston is vital to the welfare of Oswego. For, having it, she will then, and for the first time, be on a thoroughfare - and a thoroughfare, too, for such cities as Portland and Boston. Boston will never get back her steam-ships - will never have ample freight for them - until she shall have made, or, to speak more correctly, have completed her connexion with Oswego. And Portland must draw her life-blood through Oswego as well as through Ogdensburgh.

But why, since I was originally in favor of the Midland Road, and still have property in Oswego, am I, now, opposed to its being built ? 1st, Because, since then, the enterprising Syracuse and Oswego Company have, by laying a third rail upon their Road, and by means of their irrepealable agreement with the owners of other Roads, secured to Oswego a broad gauge connexion with New York. 2d. Because, since then, great progress has been made in the building of several roads, which will connect her, more or less directly, with New York. At those times when her other Roads are crowded, or their charges high, Oswego will find great advantage in having the hair Haven Road amongst the competitors for her business. 3d. Because, too. I have acquired a much deeper sense than I had in the past of the evil of building roads by Town-Bonds. And 4th, because the present absurd, village-pleasing and bond-catching route of the Midland Road is as widely different from its originally intended route as is folly from reason and nonsense from sense.

Just here, let me say that, for the present, Oswego needs no other avenues to New York than those she now has and those, which, already begun, she soon will have. When the Niagara Ship Canal shall be built, and Oswego shall, consequently; be flooded with Western products, then the City of New York will seek to distance her rivals for those products by building the true Midland Rail Road. It will be built on the shortest and levelest route, and must, therefore, in passing through the County of Madison, take the Cowaselon Valley. It will, also, at whatever may be the cost, be a very substantial Road : and thus, in connection with its great superiority in point of shortness and levelness, it would, were there in existence any such poor apology for a Midland Road, as that, which is now contemplated, utterly impoverish it.

But, it may be asked - what will Chenango, Otsego, Delaware, Sullivan and Ulster do, in the meantime, for further and very necessary Rail Road facilities? I answer that they will not have to wait long for the true Midland Road, which will be worth to them many fold more than would be the poor thing under that nane, which, in their blinding eagerness for a Road, they, unhappily, are now willing to be put off with. Then, too, whilst they would have to help build this poor thing, and would, of all their great outlay, get little or nothing back, capitalists, ever ready to invest in a rational and promising enterprise, would build this true Midland road for them. Moreover, these Counties are not, and may never be, in great need of a direct connexion with Oswego. To incite the Oswego dealers in flour and grain to favor the building of the sham Midland Road, these dealers are told that, by means of this Road, they will have the supplying of these Counties; - thus making no account of the Binghamton Road, the Central Road, the Oswego and Erie Canals, Syracuse and Utica, from each of which avenues and Cities these Counties will, ever, obtain a share of the flour and drain brought into them.

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Rail Road advantages. The Utica Rail Roads will, soon, be extended to Binghamton; and this will suffice for Chenango, especially if Oneida shall, instead of vainly relying on the farcical Midland Road, connect herself by a direct Railroad with Hamilton. Otsego will, probably, connect herself with Utica and some other point in the Central. The other mentioned Counties will make, their Railroad connexions more directly and more ad advantageously with New York.

But will this very undue multiplication of Railroads, of which I have spoken, be attributable to the Town-Bonding system ? Mainly. I admit, that there are instances where, in the absence of this system, Railroads are built, which the public interests do not call for, and which are, therefore, not remunerative. But the danger of multiplying superfluous roads is immensely, enhanced wherever this system obtains. Many of them, winding here and climbing hills there in pursuit of Town-Bonds, will be superfluous, because comparatively worthless in consequence of such departures from the true routes. And many superfluous roads are, and will be, built under this system, because, whilst men are very slow to subscribe on their individual account for stock in a road, which does not afford a pretty certain promise of making good dividends, they, nevertheless, are in a far less cautious mood, when voting to have their Town take stock in it. They will collectively take large risks for their Town in cases where they would utterly refuse to take even small individual risks. For instance, it may, after all, be that the people of Oswego will load their

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little City with a debt of six hundred thousand dollars in aid of building this absurdly-located Midland Road, whilst it is manifest that the aggregate of their individual subscriptions toward building it would not exceed one twentieth of so great a sum ; and whilst it is manifest, too, that the earnings of the Road would not pay a single dollar of either the principal or interest of the wasted six hundred thousand dollars. By the way, if the folly of bonding her for this great and wasted sure shall be actually committed, who will be so foolish, as to remove to Oswego ? - and I might almost ask, who will be so foolish, as not to remove from her?

I confess that I have drawn my illustrations so largely from the Midland Road, not merely because I am familiar with it and its history. I confess that I like to speak against this Road, both in season and out of season : and that, hence, if it shall appear hardly fair in me, when writing to you under the head of Town Bonds, to write well nigh as much about the Midland Road as about the Bonds, I could no more offer an adequate apology for having done so than could Cato for ending all his Speeches with: "Carthage must be destroyed."

I close my letter by saying: Let the building of Railroads be voluntary; and let no widow, nor orphan, nor any other person, be compelled to help build them.

Very respectfully yours

GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO January 20 1868.