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Chatty
Chattanoogans! |
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Stephen A. Long
put Chattanooga on the map
with a stake
driven in
the heart
of Georgia,
on property
owned by
Hardy Ivy.
This visionary
chose the site
of
Terminus, the
End of
the Line
from
“River City.”
Mr. Long planned
the connection of the City
of Chattanooga,
on the Tennessee River, by this railroad project,
to the Atlantic port of Charleston.
The first
passenger train
in the United States
to be powered by a steam locomotive, was pulled
six miles
on Dec. 25, 1830.
When it was completed in 1833, this railroad from Charleston
to the present-day North Augusta, was the
longest railroad in the world!
The Georgia Railroad was extended from Augusta,
to intersect with the
W. & A. RR,
at the location designated as Terminus.
This intersection was moved about a quarter mile east in 1842,
to its present location at Underground Atlanta.
The name of Terminus was changed to
Marthasville in 1843,
to honor the daughter of Wilson Lumpkin,
a former governor of Georgia.
The middle name of Martha Atalanta Lumpkin
may have been modified to suggest the relation of the city of
Atlanta with the Atlantic
Ocean port of Charleston.
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
suggests the earlier name of Marthasville,
and that Martha could be a
fast woman
if she
traveled today!
Mr. Long improved Chattanooga
by the rail connection
to Charleston,
and created this great city
at the
“End of
the Line”.
But he
did not
“Sacrifice,”
as Harold Ford suggests
that Bob Corker
should have done, to
atone for
the revitalization of
Chattanooga, which he promoted
as mayor of
that city.
Unlike the rooster,
who crowed
to proclaim
his power to evoke
the Sun
into the sky,
Messrs. Long, and Corker
did not mess around with
self-aggrandizement.
Chattanooga was vitalized with quiet probity;
the city was illuminated
by the brilliance of their achievements,
as the earth is energized
by the power of the Sun.
Vitality in Moderation
was vindicated as
a virtue
when the venue of vendetta
vitiated Atlanta
by Sherman’s refractory ambulation
to the Atlantic!
[ Quotes from
The Railroad Comes
to Ducktown
by R. E. Barclay. ]
The W. & A. RR was chartered in
December 1836, work was begun
at Marthasville in 1841,
and “ sample casks
of Ducktown ore were shipped”
from Dalton, Georgia,
in 1847.
The railroad “ was
later completed to Chattanooga,
Tennessee, in 1850.”
“ Tennessee was said to have been notoriously
slow in the matter of building railroads.
It was not until 1854 that the Nashville and Chattanooga
railroad,” was completed.
“ Three years later the Memphis and
Charleston Railroad, coming east from Memphis,
also made connection with the” W. & A. RR
at Chattanooga.
Preliminary poisoning incited railing
against Knoxville and Louisville.
“ Railroad boosters in East Tennessee,
(long before the days
of
radio,)
were active.” “ They
sponsored a booming Railroad convention
which was held at Knoxville on
July 4, 1836.”
“ The booming took on a hollow sound
for the delegates from lower East Tennessee and Georgia,
however, when the convention went on record as favoring
a route across upper East Tennessee, by way
of Knoxville, as a link in a
proposed railroad
from the middle west to Charleston,
South Carolina.”
Knoxville delegates could have gained the support of Georgia,
Chattanooga, and Cincinnati, by emphasizing the faster
completion of railroads and commerce.
Before the Civil War, rail lines extended North
across the Clinch River, and South to Dalton, Ga.
Andrew’s Raiders were captured and brought to Knoxville
after they stole “The General.”
The railroad from Knoxville to Cleveland was later
extended directly to Chattanooga.
The Knoxville convention aroused
bitter opposition and competition
when they chose to bypass Chattanooga and Georgia,
by promoting the railroad which was later built along the
French Broad River, to Asheville, and Charleston.
Train operation has been discontinued over the most steep and dangerous
mainline railroad grade, east of the Mississippi River.
Rail links through Asheville, Bristol, and Cumberland Gap,
remain active. Dispatch freight from Cincinnati to Charleston
avoids the Saluda Grade,
by traveling down the “Rathole” route to Chattanooga and Atlanta.
Knoxville, the third largest industrial city in the Southeast,
failed to continue the rapid development which was diverted by
that decision. “Bears get some, and Bulls
get some, but the Hogs get none.”
[ Quotes from a Master’s Thesis
by Riley Oakley Biggs:
“Development of Railroad
Transportation In Tennessee.” ]
“ The Cincinnati Southern Railway differs in
many respects” from other railroads.
“ In the first place, it was a municipal
undertaking of the first magnitude, being financed by the
city of Cincinnati.” This was a most successful
public-private
partnership, which promoted prosperity
in Cincinnati.
“ Feeling that public opinion warranted action,
the city council met and officially declared the proposed
railway a necessity and provided for the general
referendum. In order to insure a large vote on the
referendum, the mayor ordered all
business
houses throughout the city
to suspend activity long enough
for employees to vote. On election day
nine bands paraded the streets.
(Coulter, op. cit., p. 34.)
On June 26, 1869, the voters of Cincinnati
endorsed the action of the City Council
by an overwhelming majority.”
Despite the acclaim with which it was received,
the Cincinnati Southern Railway declined
into the abyss of
receivership,
caused by the financial crisis of 1873.
Legal restraints of municipal ownership
crippled the marketing of bonds, which were
“negotiated at par value in New York,
though a high commission was charged for the
transaction.”
(Hollander, op. cit.,
pp. 37 - 39.)
“ Obstructions in the Ohio River at Louisville
prevented the passage of large boats until the”
Louisvillians
excavated a channel.
“ Cincinnati merchants now protested
against paying discriminatory tolls.”
“ In 1859, the
Louisville and Nashville
was opened to traffic.
Cincinnati “suffered greatly during the hostility
between the states due to paralysis of her
southern trade.”
“ Her big problem was to break the
strangle hold that Louisville had
on her commerce.”
“ There was no bridge across the Ohio
at Louisville until 1870.
Hence, southern consignments continued to be
sent down the river to
Louisville
and transferred
to trains” which passed through Nashville
and “ Chattanooga — the cross-roads
of the South.
The merchants of the
‘Queen City’ constantly complained that their
merchandise was delayed at Louisville
with malicious spite.”
“ The policy of rate discrimination
employed by the Louisville and Nashville
was particularly atrocious.
The rate for Cincinnati’s
products was generally determined by adding to the
regular rate the cost of transportation by river
from” Cincinnati.
(Hollander, op. cit.,
pp. 16 - 17.) and
(Coulter, op. cit., p. 12.)
Those lugubrious lamentations have been supplanted
by libations and lucubration.
Since a natty Cincinnati gambled with the Proctor
of a Collage of dirty laundry,
they have enjoyed the high irony of being
railroaded
to “ Meet me
in St. Louie”
on the
BIG FOUR.
The directed routing to Chattanooga
as the southern terminus of the Cincinnati Southern Railway,
was the next major advance for Chattanooga.
Competition to promote the “Queen City of the West,”
exacerbated rivalry and mutually inflicted
vituperative, verbal expectoration!
Auld acquaintance with Knoxville was occluded by this award,
and William of Occam was forgotten,
when that railroad was later named the Cincinnati,
New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railroad:
C.N.O. & T.P.
“ At an early date, Cincinnati learned that her
commercial destiny depended upon southern markets.”
A meeting was held in Clinton, Tennessee,
on the day that the
Ferguson Act became
a law (in Ohio).
They adopted this resolution:
2.
That our inexhaustible mines of iron and coal,
situated side by side; our millions of acres of forests
that have never heard the sound of the woodmen’s axe;
our thousands of cheap, healthful and inviting homesteads —
all situated on the line of said
Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad, and chequered with
hundreds of mill streams — only await the sound of the steam whistle
to call forth their treasures, and will furnish said railroad
with an extraordinary local freight, and will furnish Cincinnati with
cheap coal, iron,
leather, wood, etc.
Twenty-nine delegates were appointed to represent
Anderson, Campbell, and Knox Counties
in Cincinnati, to direct the railroad to Knoxville.
The list of delegates included names
such as:
L. C. Houk,
W. G. Brownlow,
Horace Maynard,
O. O. Temple,
Adrian Terry,
C. W. Jones,
M. D. Bearden,
R. C. Jackson,
C. M. McGhee, and
Joseph A. Mabry.
“ The Knoxville route to the South Atlantic
was the shortest and in many ways
the most practical.”
“ The Chattanooga
route
was the longest of the four
and traversed a much
rougher region.”
This section of railroad had so many tunnels,
that it was known as the rathole
division.
The intense rivalry between
Bob Corker, and Harold Ford,
is similar in animation and anatomy, with
the invective, explication,
and onomatopoeia,
applied to appropriate
railroad routing, from Knoxville,
to Chattanooga!
The Chattanooga Republican
(newspaper) printed this
“ tribute to knoxville:”
“ We are in favor of doing just
by Knoxville, and of granting her
reasonable assistance in maintaining herself among the
thriving country villages of the state,
but if she must be subsized (sic.)
to the extent of a million or two annually
in order that she may become a city,
we think it better that she should be permitted to
deteriorate into the summer resort
for which she was evidently destined
by nature.”
(Quoted in the Knoxville Whig,
May 14, 1869.)
“ To this the Knoxville Whig
made the following retort:”
“ But for what was
Chattanooga evidently destined by nature?
How many feet under water was she a year or two ago?
Ten? How extensive did the water spread?
Ten miles? A tunnel
five or ten miles long would have to be constructed
to insure a dry passage over it in the event of a
large freshet.”
“ After the convention was over
[in Cincinnati ]
and Chattanooga felt confident of victory,
the Republican endeavored to humiliate
Knoxville still more.”
“ Folks are deserting Knoxville
as rats desert a sinking ship. Her omnibus railroad
appropriations have given out, and everything is unusually
dull there, with the promise of becoming still worse.
Like sensible people they are moving down to
Chattanooga, where there is an abundance of work
at good wages. During the past two days
no less than one hundred laborers have arrived on the trains
from Knoxville, and gone to work,
most of them on the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad.
Our information is that others will come
as soon as they can get
the means.”
“ To this also the Whig
replied that ‘ Knoxville
does more work in one day
than Chattanooga does in
a week. . . .’ ”
(Quoted in the Knoxville Whig,
June 3, 1869.)
The story of the
Better fed Calf
includes a summary of how Estes Kefauver
successfully challenged the powerful Crump organization of Memphis
and won election in 1948,
to his first term in the United States Senate.
The rhetorical repartee between
Messrs. Corker and Ford lacks the eloquence of
Mark Twain’s Journalism
In Tennessee, or the vituperation of
H.L. Mencken’s scathing
obituary about
William Jennings Bryan.
We are poorly served by Mr. Corker’s reticence
to respond to dissimulation regarding his
dissimilitude from Mother Teresa.
Are the opprobrious observations of Mr. Ford’s political pandering—
refuted by turning the other cheek,
to deserve beatification?
Does Mr. Corker condone this martyrdom?
Or should he express condign comeuppance
by conveying the familiar parable of the
HarlemCorner?
Virtue is rewarded in the best
of all possible worlds.
Dr. Pangloss is not an exemplar for emulation
to persecute Mr. Corker. We should inspire Tennesseans,
from Newport, along “ Thunder Road”
to Memphis, to sponsor a
spiritual revival
of this great state!
“ This is not about politics,
it is about getting things done,”
Governor Bredeson has stipulated so clearly.
He should welcome a
“Jackson Democrat”
who promotes prosperity
to pay off our National Debt.
The ‘Tree of Life’
which bears the
golden apples,
was in the “Garden
of the Hesperides,”
The tree was guarded by three nymphs,
and a Serpent, or Dragon,
the ever-watchful Ladon.
Ancient medallions, represent a tree
with a serpent twined around it.
The tempter of our first parents assumed the form
of that serpent, as Mr. Biddle
assumed the presidency of the Second
Bank of the United States (established by
Alexander Hamilton).
It was one of the labors
of Hercules
to gather some of these
apples of life.
Hercules is depicted in the act of contending
with the serpent, and the head of that serpent was
placed under his foot. Consequently,
the head is crushed beneath the heel
of Hercules.
Before Roy Bargy, we can remember
Andrew Jackson as the American
dragoon
slayer, in the
chaotic
Battle of
NOLA.
He appalled the
white man’s
invasion of New Orleans,
apoplected the British,
execrated Mr. Biddle,
and expunged the charter
which propagated that pecuniary,
political pandering.
Is it “ Time for a change?”
Is it Time for another leader who is
“O. K.” ?
We all benefit when prosperity is separated
from politics.
Martin
van Buren
was not as conspicuously heroic as Andrew Jackson,
but he was one of the most effective leaders to protect the right
of individual initiative.
The torrent of peaceful achievement in this great country
was unleashed when this
anti-Karl Marx restrained the political vampires
from the life-blood of Banking and Commerce.
The panic of 1857 was significantly less destructive than
the panic of 1837, which followed the Bank War that
Andrew Jackson and he had won. The comparison of these
panics is similar to the 1929 crash, and the 1987 panic,
when Alan Greenspan avoided the error of
Andrew W. Mellon.
The unregenerate pecuniary offspring of Mr. Biddle
re-emerged when Abraham Lincoln was elected,
to pillage by import taxation, enforced by the
War of Northern Aggression. Their carnivorous carpetbaggers were
dispatched to reconstruct their Southern brethren
by such rapacious slaughter, that the emancipation of
Constantine
seems idyllic by comparison.
[ Constantine passed a law
which gave freedom to all the slaves
who should embrace Christianity,
and to those who were not slaves,
he gave a white garment
and twenty pieces of gold,
upon their embracing the
Christian faith. ]
After his regeneracy from
previous tolerance of abortion, perhaps Bob Corker can
establish his credibility among the credulous
by apologizing for the piffling political advertising
that he has authorized.
Apotheosis is achieved by aggrandizing the achievements
of others, not by
abstracting the stature of adversaries.
He can proudly claim the reputation
for achievement, that he
has rightfully earned, by emulating Andrew
Carnegie.
“ When he was a boy
back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit,
a mother rabbit. Presto! He soon had a
whole nest of little rabbits— and nothing to feed them.
But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys and girls
in the neighborhood that if they would go out and
pull enough clover and dandelions to feed the rabbits,
he would name the bunnies in their honor.”
“ Years later, he made millions by
using the same psychology in business.”
“ Andrew Carnegie
built a huge steel mill in Pittsburgh and called it
the ‘ Edgar Thomson
Steel Works.’ ”
The “ Pullman
Palace Car Company” was another example of
this insight into human nature.
In the political game of
Rock, Paper, Scissors, The accomplishments
of Mr. Corker
are assailed by the snippy harpies.
Joe Ierna,
“ the Piano Man,” did not explain
the Aeolian samoleans which he earned from
real estate investments. Nor should Bob Corker
yield to those who yammer and yearn to yank him
from your recognition for leadership.
When salubrious shekels evoked self-righteous
scowls and heckles,
John
D. Rockefeller
wryly alibied:
“ God
gave me my money.”
Modern Medusas minimize Mr. Corker
as a momma’s boy;
but he and “mom” remain buddies.
Unlike the orphan: Lizzie Borden,
he is reputable to replace any
meandering modern Moses.
Perhaps Bob Corker can accouche himself into
senatorial valhalla by stentorian elucidation of the
opportunities for all Volunteers to achieve their goals —
when Government protects
their rights to pursue values, and the property
they yearn, in turn,
to earn.
Meandering modern Moses:
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