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64 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
Under the same date, President Bowen addressed
the following letter to Gov. Seward, who was a close
personal friend of the Erie President ;
New York and Erie Railroad Company's Office,
New York, 12th March, 1842.
Sir: I deem it my duty to state to you that the means of
the Company in whose charge the New York and Erie Railroad
has been placed are exhausted.
There has been derived from individual subscriptions to the
stock of the Company near two millions of dollars. A large
proportion of the subscribers are citizens living along the
line of the road, who have been induced, from considerations
for the public welfare, to contribute to the construction of
the road, and in the confident belief that the Legislature will
extend the same proportion of aid that it has hitherto done.
A suspension of the work and the discharge of the large
bodies of men now employed upon it will produce great individual
distress as well as serious loss to the Company and
the public, from the temporary abandonment ofit while in
a state of partial completion.
Under the supposition that the Legislature would continue
the proprotion of aid that it has hitherto afforded, the Company
made no provision for the interest on the State loan due
on the firstof April, but extended all their means in the construction
of their road. They have so far progressed that
with the section already finished more than three hundred
miles may be put in use during the present year.
I respectfully pray you, therefore,if you deem it not improper,
that you will bring the subject again before the Legislature,
and represent the serious evils that must be created
by the suspension of the work, while,if aid be granted, a newavenue
extending through more than one-half the State will be
opened, affording facilities for the transportation of products to
market from which the citizens of that section are now debarred.
I find a sufficient justification for this application in the
large pecuniary interest the State has in this great work; in
the deep solicitude of a million of inhabitants for its completion,
and in your own expressed opinions concerning the
importance of the enterprise.
With sentiments of the highest respect,
I have the honor to be,
Sir, your obedient servant,
James Bowen,
President of the New York & Eric R. R. Co.
To His Excellency, Wm. H. Seward.
the suit of the State; and the just expectation of immeasurable
benefits to result from the enterprise will be suddenly
and popularly disappointed.
This information cannot excite surprise. No one could
have expected that the road in its unfinished state could produce
capital or even revenues; and the association acted wisely
in devoting all their means to its prosecution, relying upon
the justice of the State and the liberality of their fellow-citizens
for such additional resources as would be necessary to secure
its completion.
Respectfully referring to the suggestion made in my annual
message in view of this crisis, I will only add that no measure
less favorable to the enterprise than the past policy of the
State could now be effectual, while none, in my judgment, that
would involve any sacrifice on the part of the State is necessary.
Nevertheless, the responsibility of conducting the enterprise
to an early consummation seems to me to rest not with
the New York and Erie Railroad Company but upon this
State. The association can only be regarded by the people
as an agent of the Legislature; and while, like all other agents,
it ought to be held to a just accountability, the State cannot
discharge itself from responsibility by pleading the failure of
its agent, whether with or without excuse, to perform its
duties, or meet the expectations of the Legislature.
William H. Seward.
Comptroller Flagg placed before the Legislature,
March
21st, the correspondence between himself
and Bowen, and in his letter accompanying it said :
" This large amount of stock, for the payment of
which the faith of the State is pledged, has been
disposed of in market in a manner to the great
injury to the credit of the State, and yet the Directors
of the Company have so utterly disregarded the
obligation they have entered into to protect the
faith of the State as not to reserve out of the $900,-
000 paid to them within the past five months a sum
sufficient to pay the interest on the stock which
becomes due the firstof April."
Besides this correspondence with the Governor
and the Comptroller, President Bowen, at about the
The result of this letter was a message from the
same date, sent a petition to the Legislature, (which
Governor to the Eegislature as follows :
was read in the Senate March 16th,) submitting the
Executive Chamber,
report of Engineer Morton on the survey of the new
Albany, March 14, 1842. route for the railroad in the Delaware Valley and
To the Legislature:
between Deposit and Binghamton, in which he said
The letter of the President of the New York and Erie Railroad
Company herewith transmitted shows that if legislative that "if the road were to be regarded only as a
aid is longer withheld from the association it must desist means of revenue to the stockholders, the consideration
of these lines would not be pressed upon your
from prosecuting its great enterprise; the laborers employed
must be discharged: the interest on the three million State
loan, which will accrue on the firstof April next, will remain honorable bodies ; for it is believed that evenif the
unpaid; the contingent debt will fall immediately upon the
most expensive be adopted, the road will be largely
treasury; the capital invested in the enterprise by our fellowcitizens
will be lost; the New York and Erie Railroad, in its productive. But your petitioners are not permitted
scarcely half completed condition, be exposed to auction at to regard it as a private enterprise, or as a simple