| From the Dallas Herald |
| |
| December 16, 1861 |
| |
| Governor's Message |
| The first message of a new
Governor is always expected with something more than mere curiosity,
and always read with more interest than the valedictory of a retiring
predecessor. *** |
| The main feature of the paper,
in our estimation, is that portion contained in a very short clause,
relative to Railroad matters, and suggesting that further relief
should be considered to certain Railroad companies. We were not
prepared to see this in the first message laid before the House; and
the haste with which it is recommended, seems almost an indelicate
foreshadowing of a line of policy and a tendency which cannot be too
severely deprecated, In plain words, we mean, the growing disposition
to legislate the State into a sort of a pawnbrokers' establishment,
where the Railroad corporations have deposited a mass of irredeemable
and worthless trash, for which they have got the cash and the bonus,
and left the State to whistle for its pay. The condition of the State
securities, seems to be ??? of the most serious questions, in a financial
point of view, now before the State. The people have caught the alarm;
lest the two millions of dollars, principal and interest, now
due from these companies, be lost and its place supplied by increased
taxation. A Bill has already been introduced, praying to relieve
Railroad companies from paying the interest accruing on their bonds;
and there is apparent a marked disinclination to donate the paltry
number of 160 acres of land to the actual settler on the frontier,
while on the other hand, men talk glibly of large bonuses of land to
delinquent corporations, and the justice of extension, relief &c.
What does it all mean, coming sin??ly with the recommendation of the
Governor? Does it augur a system of legislation that may become
partial and subservient to the Railroad influence? Does it indicate
that when they are released from the interest, the entering wedge is
driven, to ask a release from the principal? The Governor does not say
what is the measure or manner of relief desired, but hints obscurely
at the disadvantages resulting from the purchase of the roads by the
State, under the existing lien. Why all this cry for relief, when the
companies have relieved themselves in an effectual manner, for they do
not pay nor take any steps towards so important a matter. If they be
released by positive legislative enactment, they are not one whit
better off, except their consciences would be a little easier. It is a
matter of small moment to the man who does not, or will not pay,
whether his creditor holds his paper or not; if he cannot be made to
pay, it is all the same; and if the condition of the money market is
such that the sale of the State securities would be inexpedient, and
that it would be impolitic to sell the road beds under the lien, with
the prospect of the State becoming the purchases of an
elephant," the companies have "a dead thing: and need
not cry for relief, but just hold on to what they have got until they
can make a clean sweep of the two millions. |
| We fear that repeated calls
for relief will lend to more wicked and iniquitous legislation than
any yet recorded, and we hope to see the Governor bend his
characteristic energy and honesty to a careful consideration of the
dangers threatening the finances of the State. |
|