USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, from its first discovery to the year 1830; with dissertations upon the rise of opinions and institutions, the growth of agriculture and manufactures, and the influence of leading families and distinguished men, to the year 1874; > Part 42
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190, 188, 137
75,000,000
115, 188, 137
78,290,374
67,000,000
11,290,374
Total.
$376,285,511
$182,000,000
$195,285,511
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Thus on these three roads alone $195,285,511, or a sum ex- ceeding by $13,285,511 their entire cost, represents stock for which not a dollar was ever invested, and the business over these roads must contribute $19,000,000 annually to pay a dividend of ten per cent. upon this illegitimate stock of honest capitalists. This is the way great fortunes are amassed by men who are scandalized by the beggary and theft of poverty, and daily thank God that they are not "as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." Much of their original capital and its annual income are sponged, by the laws of what is called legitimate business, out of the producers and consumers who are compelled to patronize the roads, and God only knows how many industries perish by the loss of their profits, or how many hungry souls die for the want of bread thus filched from their mouths. But what matters it? The rich man will endow an asylum or build a church in his will, and be eulogized at his burial, and the poor will
"go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds, And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And, dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue."
But these are only three out of thirteen hundred railways. If two thousand three hundred and twenty-nine miles of road can roll so heavy a weight upon the enterprise of the country, what power to paralyze may be exercised by seventy thousand-one- half the railroad mileage of the world.
It may be true, as is claimed, that the present tariff of rates pays no more than a fair income upon the nominal stock of the railways of the country as a whole, but that reply does not satisfy the gravamen of the complaint, which is that the public is being taxed to pay an income upon capital never invested. Undoubt- edly a careful examination would show that the present rates on some roads are not exorbitant, but it is believed they are excep- tions. There are doubtless roads on which the receipts do not pay an income upon the original investment, but they were un- wisely located and should never have been built. If a man buys a ledge for a plumbago mine, he cannot justly call upon the public to pay him an income upon his foolish investment, neither can a railroad company which builds into a barren waste where the development of business is impossible.
We are not now discussing the exceptions, but the general question, and are anxious to learn how the acknowledged diffi- culty is to be overcome, and relief afforded to the great indus- tries of the land. In considering the remedies, we have a right to assume that competition between railroads owned and directed
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HISTORY OF
by private companies will never bring relief, for experience in France, Prussia, Belgium, Great Britain and the United States has demonstrated that in the end it always leads to combina- tions which aggravate the evil.
There seems to be no alternative left but governmental inter- ference. But here we are met by the positive denial in presi- dential vetos and the opinions of high legal authorities, of the constitutional right of such interference. But these denials are contested by counter arguments and legal opinions of equal force and weight, and the judicial and political opinion of the country I think is gradually acquiescing in the view that the power to regulate commerce between the states given to con- gress by the constitution includes the right to regulate the traf- fic upon the great net-work of railroads over which by far the greater part of our commerce passes. The right of congress to fix rates and fares and to build railroads has never come di- rectly before the supreme court, but decisions on other ques- tions, given by Justices Miller and Story and Chief-Justice Mar- shall, seem to cover the ground.
"For myself," says Justice Miller, "I must say that I have no doubt of the right of congress to prescribe all needful and proper regulations for the conduct of this. immense traffic over any railroad which has voluntarily become a part of one of those lines of inter-state communication, or to authorize the creation of such roads when the purposes of inter-state transportations of persons and property justify and require it."
This language covers only such roads as lie partly in different states, and implies that those which lie wholly within a state are to be left to the jurisdiction of state authority. By far the larger part of our roads are of the former class, and their rates will be likely to determine the rates of state roads.
In discussing the power of government to intervene by direct legislation, there is a line of argument which seems to be strangely overlooked. The right of eminent domain, contraven- ing the right of private property, can only be secured to govern- ment on the claim that personal interests must be subordinated to the welfare of society. Now no railroad could be built if the government, state or national, did not confer upon the company the power to condemn by commission and take private property on just compensation. But the government, it is conceded, has and can exercise this right only where the private property con- demned is taken for public use, and of course it cannot delegate the power to a company except upon the same condition. Hence the government is obligated to protect the public in every case against the misuse or abuse of such power. This it can do only by regulating the management of the roads. They are common
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
carriers and cannot be allowed to take advantage of public necessities to amass a fortune at the expense of other interests.
Leaving the discussion of this difficult question here, let us con- sider a few of the methods by which it is proposed to remove the hardships which rest so heavily upon our interior commerce.
I. It is proposed that the government shall purchase and run the roads in the interest of the public.
2. That congress shall regulate the conduct and policy of the roads by direct legislation.
3. That congress shall indirectly regulate charges and manage- ment by one or more roads to be controlled or owned by the government, and by the improvement of natural or the con- struction of artificial water-ways.
These three constitute the chief remedies proposed. We have space only to discuss them briefly in order.
The first proposition is, that the government shall purchase and run the roads. If now we concede the power of govern- ment to do this, there still remains the question of policy. It has been done successfully by some of the arbitrary govern- ments of Europe. Where this plan prevails, the roads, when built by the state, are located with reference to the wants of each sec- tion and the whole community, looking both to its foreign and domestic interests, and constitute an integral system. They are thoroughly constructed at a reasonable outlay, and so conducted as to pay a fair return only upon the original cost. Under this system, the management of the railways partakes of the gen- eral character of the administration of government, and, as a rule, in our time will be efficient and favor the development of business and the accommodation of the public. But this pater- nal system governs too much, and tends to dwarf rather than to develop popular enterprise and business capacity. The genius of our government simply protects society, while individual en- terprise regulates affairs and develops resources. The govern- ment that is called to interfere too far with the industries of the citizen, in time may destroy his liberties. But we need not de- lay on this branch of the subject, for it will be impossible, for a long time to come, for the government to purchase the railroads of the country. It has been estimated that the 15000 miles of English railways would cost the government $250,000,000. It is idle, therefore, to entertain the proposition that our government shall purchase our 70,000 miles of road at their nominal value, after their stock has been so watered as to leave upon the market to-day, according to a leading journal, $500,000,000 bonds that pay no interest. Such a remedy would bankrupt our govern- ment and open the way to official peculations and frauds which would rival those of Turkey.
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HISTORY OF
The second proposition is to regulate the management and policy of the roads by direct legislation. Unquestionably the states have and should exercise the power, by immediate legisla- tion, to prevent stock inflations and the participation, directly or indirectly, by officers of railways, in the profits of fast freight lines and palace cars operated upon their roads. The evil is . gigantic, and should be crushed by superior authority. Con- gress might and should require each company to publish at every depot, and in local papers, their distances, rates, fares, classifi- cations, drawbacks and special tariffs, and forbid any variation from these under heavy penalties. They might require that companies should furnish proper facilities for the accommoda- tion of the public, and make an annual detailed and reliable re- port to the interior department of all their transactions. Con- gress might prohibit the consolidation or combination, by lease or otherwise, of parallel or competing roads. But when we re- quire of congress to remedy the essential difficulty, by regulat- ing the tariff of rates and fares on thirteen hundred railroads, aggregating a net-work of seventy-two thousand miles, and em- bracing an infinite variety of grades, curves, climates, cost of construction and running, quantity and character of business and the like, we throw upon the national legislature a task so herculean and difficult as to be impossible. To do such a work justly and fairly would require an amount of information which it will be difficult to secure and in respect to circumstances which are constantly varying.
In addition to this, we have the opinions of such men as Judge Curtis and Mr. Evarts, that they who hold railroad stock which they have honestly purchased in an open market, even though it represents watered stock, have vested rights which will prohibit either the national or a state legislature from intermeddling. To lower rates or fares, or otherwise interfere in a way to decrease the value of their capital so invested, would be, it is claimed, taking private property for public uses without just compensa- tion in violation of the constitution. We also have a decision of Chief-Justice Lawrence of Illinois, that the acts of that state imposing a tariff of specific charges upon railroad companies were in violation of vested rights, and therefore unconstitutional. I am aware that we have, in answer to this, a dictum of the vox populi, equivalent in the judgment of some to the vox Dei, and therefore in the nature of a higher law, emanating from a pop- ular convention, that " the doctrine of vested rights belongs to a past age and despotic rule, and has no legitimate place in the jurisprudence of a free people." But our poor lawyers and judges as a class have received so little of the subtle afflatus of this modern illumination that they cannot appreciate the force
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
and authority of this revelation of the caucus, and seem strangely disposed to cling to old constitutions and precedents.
The second proposition, therefore, is beset with insuperable difficulties. We now come to the third.
The principle of this is competition directed and controlled by congress. This is substantially the recommendation of the special senate committee appointed to examine and report upon this subject. It is proposed :
Ist, That one or more extended roads shall be built or guar- anteed by government, under a well guarded charter, and placed under national control.
2d, That one or more double track freight railways, owned or controlled by government, shall be thoroughly and honestly constructed and operated at a low rate of speed.
3d, That water-ways suitable for transportation, both natural and artificial, shall be furnished either by the aid or under the guarantee and control of government. These, it is believed, so built and controlled and operated, at low rates, in competition with private roads, and without the possibility of combination, will regulate our entire system of inter-state traffic and travel.
This plan, it will readily be admitted, has merits, but that it would realize the expectations of its projectors, if carried into execution, I very much doubt. It is easy to see that it would be as real an interference, though not as direct, with the property rights of the present holders of railroad stock, as a regulation of rates and fares by national legislation. But a more serious objection to it is, that it seems to be an impossible remedy.
Who is to build and operate railroads and water-ways under such restrictions ? Not individuals, certainly, for private capital does not so invest. If done at all, it must be done by congress ; and congress will not dare do it, for the last phase of popular sentiment is that railways shall be built by private capital and run without charge. The people demand that there shall be no more subsidies for public improvements, and so we must wait till the tide turns before this fond dream of the senate commit- tee can be realized. If it could be carried out at the expense of New England, I should expect to see it voted at the next session of congress, but as it cannot, we must conclude that we have not yet found our panacea.
My expectation is that time, which has solved so many dark problems, will solve this. Neither railroad competition nor hasty legislation and caucus resolutions, demanded by unin- formed and inconsiderate people, will ever fairly adjust railroad tariffs to the incomes of other investments, but the competition of this with other industries, and the public demand for a fair division of profits looking to the development of national re- sources and the general welfare, may so adjust them.
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HISTORY OF
No system of corporate wrong, however cunningly and com- pactly planned, can permanently resist the organized force of public opinion when brought to bear wisely and consistently against it. It will crumble and give way like our strongest ma- terial structures under the pressure of a power of nature. Mass- ive foundations, which have resisted the assaults of ages, have at last been sundered and overthrown by the silent growth of a sapling. So corporate power, however buttressed by wealth and legislation, must in the end yield to the demands of public jus- tice. The general sense of right is a resistless force, for it is the intervention of the divine will in human affairs. There is a political danger which seems never to be regarded in the con- sideration of this question, but which may yet so force itself upon the public mind, as to make it a prevailing element in its final settlement.
In one of the able papers of The Federalist, Hamilton says : "It will always be far more easy for the state government to en- croach upon national authorities, than for the national govern- ment to encroach upon the state authorities." The same thought is reiterated by Madison in a later number of that work.
Organized as the government was, the tendency was unques- tionably in that direction, and would have continued so if peace had remained unbroken. But all powers, political as well as physical, grow by exercise, and the framers of the constitution did not and could not anticipate the terrible activity into which the latent and reserved powers of the government would be called. They did not and could not foresee that the progress of science and invention in less than a century would largely de- stroy the force of their reasoning.
Our net-work of electric nerves and the broad system of iron arteries, along which pours the life-blood of business, demand a central heart. They have brought the extremes of the country into immediate and hourly communication, and have reversed the drift of powers and prerogatives from the state governments to the national. Will not the unifying and placing at the dicta- tion of government all railroads which control so large a part of the business and capital of the country, which stretch into every district of the land and command the largest abilities, impart a dangerous energy to this centripetal tendency of political power? There are evils on all sides of the circle around which we re- volve, and they demand the grave and earnest study of every man who has the well-being of his country at heart.
1
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
CHAPTER CIX.
GEOLOGY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Governor Woodbury has the credit of recommending, for the first time in the United States, a geological survey, with a view to the promotion of agriculture by chemical analysis of the vari- ous soils in the state. He based this proposal on two clauses in the constitution of New Hampshire, which are as follows : "It shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates, at all future periods of this government, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences." It also inculcates " the promotion of agri- culture, the arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures and the natural history of the country." This recommendation was made in his gubernatorial message, in 1823. He was in advance of the men of his time. Fifteen years later Governor Hill re- newed the proposal for a survey. It was not then adopted ; but during the administration of Governor Page, in 1839, a law was passed authorizing a geological survey of the state. Dr. Charles T. Jackson of Boston was appointed surveyor, and his first re- port was made in 1841. He spent three years in the work, and a large quarto volume, published by the state, contained the results of his labors.
In 1868, the legislature provided for a new survey ; and Prof. Charles H. Hitchcock was appointed surveyor. His first report was made in 1869. In 1874, the first volume of his elaborate work, entitled "The Geology of New Hampshire," was pub- lished, being a royal octavo of six hundred and sixty-seven pages. This volume contains the natural history of the state, including its geological structure, rocks, minerals, soil, climate, together with the flora, fauna, and insects found within its borders. The report will be completed in three volumes quarto. Two theories respecting the geological formation of the state have heretofore been advanced and defended by different scientists. Prof. Hitch- cock proposes a third, which he thus explains :
"In general the new views refer the great mass of our rocks to the older groups, corresponding to the 'primary.' A few slates and limestones are of Silurian age, as proved by their contained fossils. The granites seem to have been poured out in a fluid condition, and to have occupied depressions on the sur- face. We have also divided the crystalline rocks more minutely than has been done elsewhere, and for the want of names have been obliged to invent new ones from localities within the state.
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HISTORY OF
The strata seem to belong to the Laurentian, Atlantic, Labra- dorian and Huronian systems of the Eozoic series, and to the Cambrian and Silurian of the Paleozoic. The Eozoic series is well represented ; and as the state must have been largely out of water during all the later periods of geological time, no intima- tion is given of what transpired after the time of its elevation.
It is very difficult to identify one set of crystalline rocks with another. Evidence derived from mineral structure must always be inferior in value to that afforded by fossils. Superposition when very plain lies at the foundation of the structure of the paleontological column, but may be deceptive in the absence of relics of life. The basis of our theory of the stratigraphical structure rests upon superposition, or, in the case of inversion, to a study of the topographical arrangement of what seem to be continuous formations, often so considered on account of their mineral composition.
Those who are unwilling to accept our theory, which has been derived entirely from a study of the rocks in the field, must show its falsity by means of facts acquired by the same pains-taking method. The following scheme may represent the stratigraphical column of New Hampshire, commencing at the bottom :
Laurentian.
{ Porphyritic gneiss.
Atlantic.
[Bethlehem group, Lake Winnipiseogee gneiss, Montalban or White Mountain series, Franconia breccia.
EOZOIC.
Labrador or Pemigewasset.
Conway granite, Albany granite, Chocorua granite, Ossipyte, Compact feldspars, Exeter syenites.
Huronian.
Lisbon group, Lyman group, Auriferous conglomerate.
Cambrian.
- Rockingham schists, Calciferous mica schist, Coös group, Clay slates, Mt. Mote conglomerate.
Silurian.
§ Helderberg limestones, slates, conglomerates, etc.
Alluvium.
Glacial drift, Champlain clays, Terrace period."
CENOZOIC. PALEOZOIC.
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A few of the more important of these groups of rocks call for a passing notice in this brief article.
The Atlantic system is thus described :
I. "Our researches in New Hampshire lead us to revive an ancient designation for the crystalline rocks along the Atlantic sea-board in distinction from the Laurentian or Adirondack group. The rocks of this system extend continuously from Maine to Alabama, though nearly concealed by the superficial formations between New York and Philadelphia. Our theory in regard to their age is that they are posterior in time to the Lau- rentian, but anterior to the Cambrian and later formations. There is a difference in their mineral character, and certain gen- eral considerations lead to the belief that the eastern border of the continent was built up after that which has for the past fif- teen years been distinctively known as the Laurentian. I can classify them as follows in New Hampshire. It remains to be proved by investigation in other states, whether any similar classification can be followed elsewhere. I cannot confidently give the formations in their proper order in time, without further study. I. Bethlehem group. II. Manchester or Lake Winni- piseogee range. III. Montalban or White Mountain series. IV. Franconia breccia."
2. "Montalban or the White Mountain series. The latter term was employed originally to designate territorially the cen- tral gneissic and granitic region of the state, including what is now referred to the Laurentian and Atlantic divisions. The rock is often characterized by the presence of the mineral an- dalusite. Any one who has observed the rocks upon Mt. Wash- ington along the traveled routes from Ammonoosuc to the Half- Way house on the carriage road, may recall crystalline bunches like small, woody, weather-worn chips scattered through the ledges. This mineral is called andalusite, and occurs abundantly in the White Mountains, though not universally. The rock con- taining it forms the main mass of the Mt. Washington range from Gorham to Hart's Location, ending with Mt. Webster."
3. "The New Hampshire granites, which are best known as building materials, belong to this formation. They are quarried in Concord, Fitzwilliam, Milford, Farmington, Hooksett, Pelham, Salem, Marlborough, Troy, Sunapee and elsewhere. The fa- miliar name of "Granite State " is very appropriate, as our re- sources in granite are rich, unlimited and widespread. It is probably found in greater or smaller amount in every town un- derlaid by the White Mountain series. Besides these there are other extensive granites of the Labrador series, and limited patches of indigenous and eruptive masses in the Merrimack and Coös groups."
26
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HISTORY OF
4. The gold-bearing rocks belonging to the Huronian System. " The existence of gold along Connecticut river was first inti- mated in the Geology of Vermont, by the finding of specimens at Springfield, Vt., and the comparison of the rocks with those of the auriferous district further west. In the Geology of Maine it was also spoken of as one of the metals characterizing the schist group extending from Bellows Falls to New Brunswick. The earliest discovery of gold in any part of it seems to have been made by Mr. Hanshet in Plainfield, N. H., in 1854. About the same time Moses Durkee washed gold out of alluvium in Lebanon and Hanover.
The first discovery of gold in Lyman was made by Professor Henry Wurtz of New York, in 1864. It was found in galena. The next year J. Henry Allen and Charles Knapp, independ- ently of each other, discovered gold in the rock in Lisbon. This led to the organization of a mining company. In 1866 a better vein was found in Lyman, in the clay slate, and an association known as the Dodge Gold Mining Company formed to work it. The two companies erected each a mill of ten stamps, and be- fore June 1, 1869, had sold not less than $16,000 worth of gold. The vein is whitish quartz, often glassy, characterized by masses of pyrites, ankerite, galena and slate scattered through it. Span- gles of gold are common in the gangue. An examination of the rock and imbedded minerals showed that there was an aver- age of $18.90 of gold to the ton, and that most of it was con- tained in the clear quartz, the accompanying minerals being nearly destitute of it. The mineral character of this vein agrees with that of the auriferous sheets in Vermont and Canada. The gold is very nearly pure, containing only half of one per cent. of silver."
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