RAILROADS --- INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS FOLLIES ---SOME THOUGHTS ON MUNICIPAL AID --- VOTERS AND THEIR DEMAGOGUES --- MONOPOLIES AND PAUPERS --- THE UNWISDOM OF LAWMAKERS --- IGNORANCE IN BULK CONSIDERED --- THE FIVE HORSE COURT --- SWAMP LANDS --- SHARP FIGURING --- O. & M. ROAD --- AIR LINE --- D. & O. LINE --- NARROW GAUGE, ETC., ETC., ETC.
RAILROADS.---As far back as 1837 this county was deeply engaged in the grand scheme of building railroads through the county. That was more than a generation ago, and while at first there was nothing but loss and grievous disappointment, yet their children when they came on, joined their fathers in the generous spirit of public enterprise, and took up the work as soon as the debris of the splendid wreck of the old internal State policy had been cleared away, and while then there was not a county in the State that could boast its mile of railroad track, now there is scarcely a county but that is fairly gridironed with these highways of wealth and commerce.
Judge S. J. R. Wilson tells us he was a member of the surveying party that surveyed the line of a railroad through Wayne County, in 1837. It was intended to build a line from Mt. Carmel to Alton. The people of Illinois were filled with extravagant day dreams, and they went wild, and the State went daft, and the State commenced not only to make itself and each voter rich, but it would, by a kind of Chinese home protection, build its own great cities and have them here in Illinois. And the wisdom of the law-makers was exquisitely manifested when they selected Alton, Shawneetown, Cairo, Mt. Carmel and a few other places that are not now designated on the maps, and determined that here the world's great cities should and would be built. These were great statesmen, and they flourished mightily, and the few members of the Legislature who had sense enough to forsee the calamities that awaited their folly, were pooh-poohed down, and a glorious constituency retired them at the first opportunity, to private life. But the bubble burst, and not a mile of railroad track was built, and yet millions of the people's money was squandered, and worse than wasted, and bankruptcy and pinching poverty were wide spread over the land. A remarkable, yet a common fact in history, was that at that time a commercial panic ran round the civilized world, thus demonstrating that it was the age that these people lived in, more than the special ignorance and folly of the people of Illinois that evolved this calamity to the young State at that time, and it will sometime become the historian's duty to con the statistics of that age, and tell what movements it was in states and societies that produced this culminating era of blindness and ignorance on these vital questions. The chastisement of the people was long and severe, and it taught them a most wholesome lesson, and in the end perhaps was the best thing that could have happened to them. There is danger that this generation may forget the story. If the schools that the State runs at such an enormous expense would only hold such lessons as these up to the minds of the young that are placed in their hands, it would tend to recompense somewhat for the outlay of the people's money. It is simply in other words, that proper knowledge of the past that should enable us to avoid the errors of those who have gone before us. Teach the young more of these practical lessons of life, and less of that glittering and fundamental folly of the fathers that "all men are equal." The truth is all men are unequal in every thing and in every way, and governments are instituted solely to increase this natural unequality. One of the most wonderful things in nature is that there are no two things in existence that are exactly alike---either hairs, grains of sand or blades of grass, letters in a book or any conceivable thing, and this is the very life, the essence of the cosmic worlds and the universe itself.
There are strong-minded men who now doubt that the lesson Illinois had in its young days on the subject of internal improvements has not been misread to the extent at least that these great improvements are or should be any more the care of the State or municipalities to build than dairies, cheese factories, corn-fields, or cattle and sheep ranches; that the transportation of the commerce of the country is a private business, and, like all such things, it should be left to private enterprise, that always in due time meets the public wants with a prompt supply. A hue and cry runs over the land about crushing monopolies---gigantic combinations of capital that sap the people of their staff of life, and breed wide distress, financial panics and pinching poverty among the laboring classes, and something of this public complaint arises from the railroads; and it is not mere foolish babbling. At present, perhaps, what we see of this public disturbance is mere smoke, but certain the fire is somewhere below, and fortunate will it be indeed if the time would soon come when this public alarm about monopolies in this country should cease for the want of any solid basis of facts to rest upon. A now growing evil has arisen in the last twenty years, and so swiftly has it come that now three men are said to control the commerce, railroads, banking, and the business of the western slope of the continent. And without a blush they boast that they own the State legislatures of their vicinage, and recent confidential letters that have found their way to the public prints, show that their grasping ambition has extended to, and been met with smiles, too, by the Congress of the United States. Could more testimony be wanted when it is an open secret that already the office of United States Senator has been purchased more than once, and the rich scoundrels have filled their terms in the high chamber of justice instead of the penitentiary where they belonged. The monopoly combination of capital is made possible in this country only by foolish laws, that were originally made in the great mistake that it was the province and duty of the Government to aid in developing the business of the country. These monopolies, when they have been made strong and rich, and when, as in California, they have every business man and the labor of the State by the throat, are answered by that feeble and often foolish scheme of labor combination---the very thing combined capital wants to see, as it gives them a pretext for their open attacks upon the public, and apparently justifies the grievous exactions that they demand and collect in the name of the strong arm of the law. So long as they can control the legislation of the country, so long may they laugh at the voters --- that palladium of the laborer of universal suffrage, "Vote, vote, vote on forever," say they, "and we will tax you to the poorhouse and the potter's field".
In looking over American law books, no intelligent man could ever for a moment suppose that this country had produced a solitary political economist --- a single writer who understood anything of the science of political economy --- how best to govern a people, and yet in the mountains of foolish laws every man is supposed to know the law, and, supremest of all other nonsense, in every ignorant noddle in the land is faithfully engrafted the fact that he is not only equal to the wisest and best, but that he is in the race for every office in the land, especially that of President of the United States. Universal suffrage is worth nothing to ignorance --- indeed it may be the weapon, wielded by its own hands, for its destruction --- not the destruction of ignorance, for this seems to be indestructible, but the ignorant.
If the schools of the country, instead of contributing to these evils of mankind, would turn about and begin to systematically instill into the children of the nation a few simple axioms of life such as would enable them to better regulate not only their own affairs, but enable them when they reached the age of majority to go to the ballot box and there deposit an intelligent vote --- a vote that would contribute to the bettering of the Government and the condition of all the people, it would be a happy consummation, and would soon give a sublime solution of the now mooted question, "Are the schools a failure?"
Our law-makers, in other words, believe they possess the wisdom to make laws that will more rapidly develope the country, and thereby make the people rich and happy. That they can pass friendly laws for railroads, canals, rivers and harbors and lines of ocean steamers is readily granted, and that the laws that aid these enterprises by the public money or by special privileges and favors from the Government, can and do stimulate into a quicker existence these great measures there can be no doubt, and they lend an appearance to the world's splendor, wealth and glittering prosperity. But the pomp and glitter may be there and yet the people may be miserably oppressed --- the suffering victims of mistaken laws --- the starving slaves of pampered monopolies. The dreariest paths in the long past history of the human race are to be found in the impartial story of these meddlings of Government in affairs that it should let alone. At one time in the name of a divine king; at present and for a hundred years in this country, in the name of the divine mob, which with "greasy hands and stinking breaths" can vote. The cruelest taskmaster was always the fellow slave; he always wielded the bloodiest lash, and laid on its pitiless tortures with the most unsparing hand. And now, following the thoughtful question in reference to the schools, will come eventually the greater question, " Does universal suffrage make universal wealth or happiness." The demagogue, the combination of capital and the ignorance of the voters, are the menace to democracy and freedom in America, and f fifty years of our public schools is slapped in the face with the astounding fact that ignorance has spread faster than the free school system itself --- not illiteracy, mind you, but ignorance that is duped by demagogues to voting for its own men --- if this has even kept step with the growth of schools, and the result is that in a hundred years we have degenerated in the scale of a poor, happy and contented and innocent people, to a rich, prosperous and demoralized nation, what account can the annual institutions give to such facts as these.
We are arguing none of the problems of political economy. We are merely hinting at a few things --- suggestions that may cause some minds of a thoughtful tendency, to investigate those subjects which vitally concern every voter in this land of much voting and more law making. It is simply a crime to vote upon matters you know nothing about, and the evil will fall upon the head of the ignorant voter always. This penalty cannot be detached from ignorance. In the economy of God, this is inflexible, and hence that man is troubled with a hopeless idiocy who believes that he can be made great, good or happy by much voting and much law making. It was a non-voting English woman, who, from a simple interest in the human family, studied and investigated into the science of governments, and wrote books on the subject that are worth more to men, than have or will all the votes that may ever be cast. It is, therefore, the thinker, and not the voter, who benefits his fellow man. The most ignorant man that ever voted may be told, and he may be made to understand the remarkable fact that since governments have been instituted, the masses---the voters in this country, have always furiously voted against and often violently resisted at first every human scheme and invention that genius offered for their sole behoof and benefit. The superficial demagogue and the dishonest politician is ever proclaiming as a political axiom, that the people are always infallible, where the plain truth is they never approached that perfection, but have nearly always been wrong or mistaken. So true is this that a wise and just government cannot be found, and could not exist over any nation in the world for an hour. Because a government, either monarchic or democratic, is a reflex of the people's intelligence over whom the government exists. It is nonsense to talk about the tyranny of governments that exist for centuries in their cruel oppressions---it is the ignorance of the people who are governed, that is at fault. That kind of ignorance that in the voter in some way thinks the government can meddle in men's private affairs, and do better by its subjects than they can do by themselves; that stolid assininity that pushes forward its long ears and listens to the demagogue, who tickles them with promises that when he gets to the legislature he will pass laws to make them all rich and happy; that he will lay a tax, so smart and cunning, too, it will be, that it will take money from bloated wealth and, under the name of work and big pay, fill the coffers of all the poor. The dupe does not realize that his innate dishonesty is alone appealed to, but thinks it is his patriotic love of his fellow man, and, therefore, he is a patriot and the government that, in his imagination, allows him to rob somebody else, is the greatest and best government on the planet.
We dismiss this subject with this simple proposition, that is so plain, and to the writer's mind so true, that it will do much to better the condition of men, and advance civilization if ever it comes to be generally understood. That is this. Every society in all times and all places is good or bad exactly as it is wise or ignorant --- nay, further, a people is moral or immoral, chaste, or base, upright or dishonest, sober or drunken, good or bad, exactly as it may be wise or ignorant. And the only way under heaven to make good men is to store their minds with the simple and divine truths of nature --- this Holy Writ must be read, studied and obeyed, or otherwise its penalties will have to be endured.
Swamp Lands.---September 28, 1850, Congress passed an act entitled "An act to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the swamp lands within their limits."
The Legislature of Illinois, June 22, 1852, passed "An act to dispose of the swamp and overflowed lands, and pay the expense of surveying and selecting the same" and vesting the title in these lands to the respective counties in which they were situated.
By these acts, Wayne County became possessed of about 100,000 acres of swamp lands.
November 5, 1855, the voters of Wayne County voted in favor of the proposition "For appropriating the swamp and overflowed lands of Wayne County, as a bonus to any company for building a railroad through the county.
March 13, 1856, the county conveyed the lands to Charles Wood, Trustee, to the use of the Belleville & Fairfield Railroad Company, the Mount Carmel & New Albany Railroad Company, or to any railroad company which should build a railroad through the county, conditioned that work should commence on the execution of the deed. No work, or expenditures were ever done by any railroad under this deed during the two years of its limitation.
September 24, 1857, the county again conveyed the same land to Thomas Cooper, and eleven other citizens of the county (designated sometimes as the twelve apostles of Wayne), on condition that they build a railroad through the County Wayne and town of Fairfield to the Wabash and Ohio Rivers, within two years, with the right of extension of three years. Nothing was ever done under this deed, and it is not cancelled except by its terms.
November 19, 1858, the county entered into a contract with Vanduser, Smith & Co., to construct a railroad through the county by November 19, 1860, the county to pay $12,500 for each three miles of grading, and when the road was completed, to pay $6,000 per mile in swamp lands at $5 per acre, the land to be conveyed to the contractors when the road was completed. If the contractors failed to complete the contract in time, then to forfeit to the county all they had done, and receive nothing.
While this contract was in force, the Mount Vernon Railroad, which only had a charter from Ashley to Mt. Vernon, but which had this curious provision in its charter:
Any county through which any other railroad may run with which this road may join, connect or intersect, may, and are hereby authorized and empowered to aid in the construction of the same or of such other road with which it may so connect, and for this purpose the provision of the seventh, eighth and ninth sections of this act shall extend, include and be applicable to every said county and every said railroad.
On the 20th of April, 1859, the Mount Vernon Railroad Company claiming to have acquired the contract made with Vanduser, Smith & Co., by assignment and by agreement to fulfill the conditions of the agreement as a consideration, procured two of the County Judges of Wayne County, to execute a deed and mortgage of said lands to Isaac Seymour as Trustee, to the use of the Mount Vernon Railroad Company, as security for $800,000 of bonds to be issued by the Mount Vernon Railroad Company, for the construction of the said railroad. The Mount Vernon Railroad Company, at the same time agreeing to, and did execute to Isaac Seymour, Trustee, a mortgage on the franchise and " all property" of every character and description, whatsoever and wheresoever, and of the kind of title acquired, or to be acquired, that they might have, to secure the payment of said bonds covenanting, also at the same time to pay all tax assessed against heir property, when due. Nothing was done under this contract or assignment, nor under the deed and mortgage, when at March term of County Court, 1880, the Mt. Vernon Railroad Company appeared and asked an extension of the time to commence and complete the railroad under the Vanduser, Smith & Co., which was granted. The conditions of which were, that they were to file, plat and survey of location of the railroad in twenty days, and keep fifty men at work and more if necessary to its completion in two years, failing in either, the contract and all thereunder done or had, should be null and void.
Nothing was done under this extension of time, when in August, 1860, Isaac Seymour abandoned his trust, and the railroad company abandoning all effort to construct a railroad, and Seymour having died in 1861, all was at sea, when the County Court at December term, 1862, passed the order directing the Swamp Land Commission to proceed and sell the said lands as heretofore by preemption or otherwise, which was done, the last being sold October 13, 1868.
March 7, 1865, suit was commenced by John W. Kennicott, et al, claiming that they held the bonds for the payment of which these lands were mortgaged.
In the meantime, a large portion, perhaps all these lands had been conveyed to private parties, many of whom were citizens of the county and who had thus, as they supposed, secured a homestead.
These suits that have gone on for the past eighteen years will go into history as its celebrated cases. They have run the gantlet of about all the courts, and only just now has it been settled in favor finally of the people.
The whole thing was a fine piece of sleight-of-hand by which the county was to be euchered out of its lands and to receive nothing in return. The people expected a railroad to be built, and they were liberal enough to give all they had for it, and the sharpers appeared and plucked the goose.
The gift of a hundred thousand acres of land to the county was simply its greatest misfortune; and yet, there are people silly enough to believe and to vote that their own government possesses only much money, great wisdom, and all the virtues, and in some way or another they never doubt but that if they fail to take care of themselves the paternal government will certainly do all that.
The Five Horse Court.---The session of the Illinois Legislature of 1867 met, and the whole people of the State were wild and enthusiastic over the subject of new railroads. Wayne County was represented by a strong lobby at Springfield, and the Springfield & Southeastern Railway Charter was passed, and as the county was under the control of fifteen Supervisors, and for fear that this body was too large to handle well in the matter of submitting propositions to the voters to aid railroads, a cunning scheme in the way of an act of the Legislature was submitted and passed the Legislature. This was exclusively a Wayne County law, and it was due to the wisdom alone of Wayne County men that the law was conceived and brought forth. This was known as the "Five Horse Court" law. It was passed under the modest title of "An act to change the time of electing certain officers in a county therein named." It simply abolished the Board of Supervisors, consisting of fifteen members, in Wayne County, and divided the county into four districts, and for five Supervisors, two to be citizens of Fairfield. The two in town, of course, were in favor of any road, east and west, or north and south, and the cunning act so arranged matters that three controlled, and hence, no matter what direction any road might want to take there would be three certain to favor all propositions for subscriptions in aid thereof.
The act was to continue in force four years and then the county would return to its old fifteen Supervisors.
O. & M. Railroad.---February 25, 1867, the Legislature passed the act incorporating the Illinois Southeastern Railway Company; the incorporators were Charles A. Beecher, Joseph J. R. Turney, Robert P. Hanna, Carroll C. Boggs, Joseph T. Fleming, Henry Halthausen, Edward Bonham, all of Wayne County, and John W. Westcott, William B. Wilson, Daniel McCauly and William H. Hanna, of Clay County.
The charter designated the track of the road might commence at some suitable point on the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad, and run by way of Fairfield to some point on the Ohio River, not south of Metropolis nor north of Shawneetown. Another provision provided it should not join the Central at a point north of the town of Mason, nor south of Kinmundy. The charter provided for eight members for the Board of Directors, with power to increase the number to thirteen.
The charter provided that Charles A. Beecher, Joseph T. Fleming, William H. Hanna, Edward Bonham, William B. Wilson and John W. Westcott, should be the first Board.
February 24, 1869, the Legislature passed an amendment to this charter, giving it increased powers, and legalizing certain acts or doings of the Board.
In February, 1857, the Legislature had passed a charter for the Springfield & Pana Railroad. This road was provided to run from Springfield to Pana via Taylorville.
In April 1869, was passed the act incorporating the Pana, Springfield & Northwestern Railroad, or rather an amendment to this charter was passed at that time, and among other things it provided the Pana & Northwestern Railroad might build a road from Pana to some point on the branch of the Illinois Central Railroad.
December 7, 1859, articles of consolidation of the Pana, Springfield & Northwestern Railroad, and the Illinois Southeastern Railway Company were entered into, and formed the Springfield & Southeastern Railway Company.
The first directors of the new company were D. D. Shumway, S. W. Priest, C. W. Matheny, George H. Black, Alexander Starne, Thomas S. Ridgeway, W. B. Wilson, Edward Bonham, Charles Carroll, W. H. Hanna, W. H. Robinson, C. A. Beecher and William P. Cutler.
Dodge, Lord & Co., and William P. Cutler, had contracted to build the Illinois Southeastern Railway, and Cutler, Dodge & Co. had contracted to build the Pana, Springfield & Northwestern, and the articles of consolidation provided that as soon as the contractors had completed and have ready for equipment any part of the road between Shawneetown and Beardstown, for the distance of five continuous miles, the railroad should issue to them $100,000 of capital stock, or an equal amount of bonds convertable into stock.
The work of construction was pushed forward to completion from Beardstown to Shawneetown. Wayne County and certain townships had subscribed $150,000 in bonds, which were duly paid over, except $20,000 subscribed by Fairfield and Barnhill Townships, which was never paid, and upon suit the road was defeated, because the conditions of the donation had not been complied with by the railroad company, the paramount failure being in not putting up two depots in Barnhill Township, which had been made a condition precedent in the vote.
July 3, 1874, upon the suit of the Farmer's Loan & Trust Company against the road, a foreclosure was had and a sale decreed, and on September 15, 1874, a sale by John A. Jones, Master in Chancery, the franchise was sold to M. H. Bloodgood, and a deed of conveyance executed. The amount of the indebtedness for which the road was sold was $3,895,099.59. The amount bid at the sale by Bloodgood was the sum of $500,000. On this it appears he paid in cash $118,015.94, and the residue in bonds of the company. This cash payment was the amount of interest due in coin on the first mortgage bonds.
Exceptions were filed to this decree by W. H. Miller, Williams & Orton Manufacturing Company, M. D. Carlyle, William Gillmore and T. D. Craddock. The court allowed the claims of these parties, and January 18, 1875, the Master in Chancery issued a deed of confirmation to M. H. Bloodgood.
January 28, 1875, M. H. Bloodgood conveyed by deed to Fredrick S. Schuchardt, and John Bloodgood conveyed the entire franchise, and on January 29, 1875, these parties conveyed by deed the property to Daniel Torrence. The next day, these parties transferred the road to the Ohio & Mississippi Railway Company, and it then became what it now is, the Springfield Division of the Ohio & Mississippi Railway Company.
The Air Line.---We have already stated that as far back as 1837, a survey was made through the county of a road to run from Alton to Mt. Carmel. The State was bankrupted, as stated above, and the schemes fell through. But this Alton & Mt. Carmel road had interested Gen. William Pickering, and the road passed into his hands. He undertook to finish it and spent his fortune upon it, but only succeeded in getting a road built from Princeton, Ind., to Albion, Ill. He had arrangements made with Eastern capitalists to complete the road, but about this time the political excitement of the North and South on the subject of slavery culminated in the death of Owen Lovejoy at Alton, and capitalists became alarmed and withdrew their promised support, leaving Gen. Pickering unable to go any further. He clung to his road until he was appointed Governor of Washington Territory, when he sold out his road to Bluford Wilson and others. The agreed price was only nominal, and Pickering got none of that, but we understand about $14,000 was paid his heirs after his death.
In April, 1869, the St. Louis, Mt. Carmel & New Albany road was chartered, and also the Louisville, New Albany & St. Louis Air-Line Railway. Under the latter name the company, by Augustus Bradley, President, and George Lyman, Secretary, executed a mortgage to Calhoun & Opdyke for $4,525,000, due in 1902, but it is not known that any money was ever got under this mortgage. At all events, very little was done until May, 1881, when the stockholders met in Mt. Carmel, and resolved to issue $3,000,000 first mortgage bonds, and $3,000,000 four percent fifty-year cumulative income bonds, and $1,000,000 second mortgage bonds. Robert Bell was President, and Burr and Wilson held about all the stock. This meeting increased the capital stock from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000. In November of the same year the name was changed to Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railway Company. But in June, 1881, the company had executed a mortgage to the Mercantile Trust Company and Noble C. Butler, in which the route is described as being from New Albany, by Huntington, Ingleton, Oakland City, Princeton, Mount Carmel, Albion and Fairfield to Mt. Vernon, about 192 miles; forty-five miles, from Ingleton to Albion, had been then finished. The change of name was made necessary by a consolidation with roads from Evansville to Jasper, Ind., and from Rockport to Gentryville, Ind., making now a total of 260 miles. March 1, 1882, the road was completed from Mt. Vernon, Ill., to Huntington, in all 202 miles, and by a mortgage $1,000,000 was secured to complete the road to New Albany. Jonas H. French succeeded Mr. Bell as President, and he was succeeded in turn by John Goldthwaite, the present incumbent. This road, one of the best equipped and best run in Southern Illinois, has cost the people of this section comparatively nothing. Most of the money used in its construction was furnished by Ballou, of Boston. After it was completed, the road was much damaged by high water, and lay quite awhile before trains ran regularly, but the result was a settling of the earth, which made it from the start one of the best roads in the State. Its business at once was a paying one. The Air-Line is at present using the Louisville & Nashville track to St. Louis from Mt. Vernon, but it is the intention soon to have its own track to St. Louis, by a consolidation with the Chesapeake & Ohio it will become one of the great trunk lines from the Mississippi to the Atlantic.
Coming Roads.---Southern Illinois is so full of roads building and projected that hardly a county in this portion of the State but may point to one or more new roads either just completed, or soon to be completed. The time will come when this portion of country will sustain as many first-class railroads as will any section of equal extent in the world.
Two unfinished roads are now on their way to Wayne County. The Danville & Ohio road is in the hands of a Receiver, and we are informed the court has ordered the Receiver to issue his certificates to complete the road from Danville to Fairfield. This will fill a long-felt want of a direct road to Chicago. Such a road will do wonders in developing the entire country. And it is hoped that work will commence in the early spring and be pushed to a rapid completion.
The Toledo, Texas & Rio Grande road was begun in June, 1882, and has a fifty-year charter. The route is from Charleston or Danville, Ill., to Cape Girardeau, and thence to an intersection of the Texas & St. Louis road, and, when built, will complete a chain of road from Mexico to New York City. Much work was already done on this road in the latter part of 1883, and it is expected that it will be completed the present year (1884).
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