K AILEIGH, N. C.
TUCJISDAY, JAX. 22, IS 74.
There wu , i th Ciiy eoe Sot. infurods
for bis iasolenc and tUlalny, who lhon-t?t the
perfect ef L-bcr.r was JicentiooBDccj of
Speech Plvtabch.
Appleton! Oaksmith Jo. Tur-
; Siblcy---Westeni
North Carolina Railroad
Recognizing the service Captain
Appleton Oaksmith has -done the
State of North Carolina in keeping
before the European public, through
publications he has made, the natu
ral advantages and stupendous re
sources of our State, and being the
first to load and send direct a ship
from the favorite port of Beaufort,
it is with the most painful sense of
a disagreeable duty that the Era is
constrained to write him in the
above connection and association.
But the conduct of that gentle
man is, and has been such, that, to
save Mim from criticism, is impos
sible; when he might, and should
have so served the State as to com
mand and receive the plaudits of
this whole peoplt.
In the Sentinel of Sunday and
Tuesday, as the production in part
of Mr. Oaksmith, but giving the
unmistakable impress of Jo. Turner
appears an article, from which is
taken this statement :
"He, Gen. Sibley, says, as we
"have heard, that he loaned Gen.
"Littlefield, through his bankers,
"$175,000. When Holden talked
"about removing Littlefield as Pres
ident, Littlefield and his friends
"were in a tight place, and paid
"him (Sibley $50,000) for the aceein
"modation. Finally a million or
"more of Western Railroad bonds
"were put up with his bankers to
"secure the det. The interest was
"not paid; the million of bonds
"were sold, he bought them, and
"then filed a bill to foreclose the
"mortgage, which was done by
"Judge Dick in the Federal Court."
In publishing this statement, the
editor of the Sentinel is either a
knave or a fool. If he did not wil
fully, corruptly, maliciously, and
for pay, publish what ho knew to
be a falsehood, then he is an idiot
a natural born fool.
The last Jegislature, JJfc."Ben
nett of Anjson as chairman of a
special comjnittee, investigated the
transactifljdfrom beginning to end,
throfiTrh which Hiram Siblev came
possession of eleven hundred
thousand dollars of the mortgage
bonds of the "Western North Caro
lina Railroad, five hundred of them
signed by the trustees of the road,
and good ; six hundred not so sign
ed, and worthless.
Mr. Bennett and his Committee
took a great deal of testimony, and
reporttd that the transaction was
regular, and showed no corruption
or improper intent, whatever tho
disastrous result might be, or how
far some of our negotiators may
have been overreached, or defeated
in their expectations by subsequent
events and vicissitudes they could
not have foreseen. i
A brief history of the matter is j
this: Under a resolution introdu- j
ced by Judge Merrimon, and advo-1
cated by him, to raise money to pay
.. . . i ii . -i
contractors ana pusn uie roau io
Old Fort, a directors meeting mort
gaged the Western North Carolina
Railroad, Tod R. Caldwell, and
1erhaDS another director, opposing
the schenie.
In 1870, Dr. J. J. Mott, being
President of the road, borrowed
some $225,000 of the New York
Warehouse and Security Company,
giving the note of the Company
And putting up tke half million of
"signed, and six hundred thousand
of unsigned bonds, as collateral.
He paid one and a quarter per cent,
interest, per month. The progress
of the Franco-Prussian war, and its
consequent effect on the money
markets of Europe and America, de
feated the hopes and plans of Presi
dent Mott to realize on his securi
ties, and thus relieve his loan and
free his collaterals.
In 1871,aunder act of the Legisla
ture, making President Warren of
the Senate, and Speaker Jarvisof
the House, Deputy Governors, Sam-
uel McDowell Tate Came in as Pre -
sident of the Road. To save a quar-
ter per cent, interest, as he alleges,
President Tate negotiated a loan
with Lancaster, Brown and Compa
ny, of New York, agents or de
positaries for Hiram Sibley, and to
this house Mr. Tate transferred his
loan and collateral from the Ware-
house and Security Company.
In saving the interest, Mr. Tate
lost this advantage: By keeping
his interest paid up, his loan and
collateral could have remained in
tact to this day. His arrangement
however, with Lancaster, Brown
and Company, was, that if the loan
was not taken up by a certain day,
the collateral bonds were to go to
sale. The loan was not taken
up, and the mortgage bonds, as col
lateral securities, on which Presi
dent Mott had borrowed $225,000,
went to sale. At this sale Hiram
Sibley bought these bonds, and, it
is said, still holds them.
This is a brief statement of the
transaction. When Mott borrowed
the money, Littlefield was in Eu
rope, playing hide-and-seek with
Colonel Nick Woodfin.
If the editor of the Sentinel had
half sense, he would know the state
ment he publishes is not true. Fool
as he is, he does know better. But
to traduce Holden and others of the
State, and to earn his "by the
letter m" allowance from Mahone,
Robinson, Oaksmith or the Devil,
he must needs put forth the above
glaring - falsehood that not only
Colonel Bennett and his Committee
refutes, but which Samuel McDowel
Tate, less than a year ago, corrected
in the columns of the Sentinel.
And of this stuff is the Mahone-Oaksmith-Robinson-Turner
oppo
sition to Consolidatian.
Think of it, people of North Caro
ina! North Carolina Railroad Con
solidation. One year ago, when the Western
North Carolina Railroad was about
to go to judicial sale and to conse
quent completion, this Legislature,
with a large Democratic majority,
authorized and ordered an appeal
to be taken from the decree of the
Federal Court, at the same time
constituting a Commission to look
into trie affairs and condition of the
Western North Carolina Railroad,
and mature and propose a plan for
the solution of its troubles, and, if
possible, save to the State and our
people something of that great
work.
Following out the party instincts
of that Democratic majority, the
Legislature constituted its Com-
mission as ionows: juaunias Ji.
Manly, of New-Berne, George
Davis, of Wilmington, Walter L.
Steele, of Richmond county, and J.
H. Wilson, of Charlotte, to sit and
confer with the Governor of the
State and the Commissioners of the
Court to sell the Road, viz : Burgess
S. Gaither of McDowell, and
Marcus Erwin of Buncombe.
Mr. Davis of the Legislative
Commission and Mr. Erwin of the
Court Commissioners, for reasons
assigned at the first meeting, de
clined to serve.
But beginning early in the
Spring, and sitting from time to
time during the Summer and Fall,
down to tho meeting of the Legis-
lature in November. Messrs.
Manly, Steele, Wilson, Gaither and
Governor Caldwell, were constant
and assiduous in their efforts to ar-
rive at a solution of the great
problem that had been submitted
to them by the Legislature.
They succeeded in bringing their
labors to a happy, and, for the
State, a favorable issue.
The Commission came forward
at the beginning of the session with
what is known as the consolidation
plan, which promptly received the
approbation of the North Carolina
public The most . practical and
patriotic men of the State have ap-
proved and heartily endorsed it.
Eminent and successful Railroad
men like Colonel William John
ston, of Charlotte, have given it
their earnest endorsement and
support, and it was difficult to im
agine how any one could oppose it.
f e scneme nas met wun op-
posnion. j o simpiy uie oppusi-
oa of rivalry and conflicting. Kail-
road interests, but opposition has
been manufactured and paid for
by the letter m. ! -
Bismarck Mahone, of the consol
idated line of Railway from Nor
folk, Virginia, to Bristol Tennessee,
opposes it because it looks to the
completion of the Western North
Carolina Railroad ; a line Bismarck
nas aeciarea snauneveroe compiezea.
He cannot allow it to be completed.
Let the Western North Carolina
Railroad once reach the Tennessee
line and, on business .estimated by
his receipts, vMahono's Road loses
seventeen hundred thousand dollars
a yeart to say notning of the pros
pective increase of business.
When this Western North Caro
lina Railroad was about to be sold
and completed last Winter, Ma
honeys financial agent in London
despatched him that the sale must
be defeated, or his bonds fell fiat on
the European markets. Mahone
declares that he did not send a cer
tain gentleman here, from the Lom
bard Exchange, who figured ex ten
sivelyin Railroad matters in the
lobbies of our Legislature last
Winter. But an agent of Mahone's
when asked, last Summer, in New
York, if he sent him, admitted that
he did. :
Mahone, his financial agents,
black-mailers, conspirators and
runners were happy all last year,
for they had got the delay they
wan ted., and having blocked the
game of building the Western North
Carolina Railroad, as they thought,
permanently, they ceased their
Railroad operations in North Car
olina. J
But consolidation suddenly loom
ed up. Mahone sets the firm of
John Robinson and Father to buy
ing up those, old State bonds known
as the North Carolina Railroad
Construction .bonds. Jo Turner,
under an influence residing some
where between Andrew Swazey,
Bismarck Mahone and John Rob
inson, advises and urges the Legis
lature to pass a bill surrendering
the stock of the North Carolina
Railroad for the old State bonds
known as "Construction bonds.','
This too wtk-the stock in tho
North Carolina Railroad is paying
an annual rent of six and a half per
cent on the par value of every share
of one hundred dollars worth of
stock; while the Construction
bonds are only worth in the mar-,
kets and Robinson is buying them
for THIRTY DOLLARS IN THE HUN
DRED !
Under this state of things, and
open to the suspicion of something
worse than a letter "m" transac
tion, or a default to Montero, a
gorgeous gentleman with a palatial
mansion in Washington city, Jo
Turner began his infamous assaults
on the consolidation scheme,
which he kept up until the Legis
lature adjourned for recess. We
then hear of him in Norfolk, a ren
dezvous of Mahone and a stopping
place
of . Robinson "shooting
in Currituck" but all the
ducks
time engaged in his warfare on
consolidation.
For the past ten days and nights
tjiis modern Nimrod of Currituck
has been closeting at the National
Hotel with a gentleman who openly
avows his opposition to consolida-
tion, and comes with a matured
pian to defeat it. The fight of the
Sentinel grows fiercer and more mal-
ignant. The basest falsehoods,
manufactured abroad, are put forth
in'the columns of that paper in the
hope and with the expectation of
defeating the consolidation scheme
before this Democratic Legislature.
Hon. Matthias E. Manly, Colonel
Walter L. Steele, Colonel Burgess
S. Gaither and J. Harvey Wilson,
Esq., all Democrats, and the crea-
tures of a Democratic Legislature,
have matured, endorsed and urged
this plan. The public has approved
it ; and it has received the sanction
and support of the purest patriots
and most practical Railroad and
business men of tho State.
The Legislature has pronoimced
it. one of the grandest and most
meritorious schemes of the age.
Now defeat it ; either by captious
opposition or frivolous legislation.
If defeated, it is defeated by the
Democratic party. That party then
denies the people of the West' a
Railroad. ) It last winter destroyed
the opportunity, then present, of
its completion ; and; now kills the
last and the fondest hope the peo
ple of Western North Carolina, and
of the whole State,! ha veever in-
dulged.
Injecting, as they have, politics
. i
matter, the Democracy are welcome
to make up a political issue on it.
Republicans would infinitely prefer
that politics and Railroad consoli-
dation should stand aloof from
each other. Republicans and all
patriotic people of the State esteem
this a matter far above party con
siderations: but if such issue is
- - - 9
forced upon them, and they are sent
before the people, the Republicans
of North Carolina will have no dif-
flnnlfw In cVinrtri ntr in ihn nponlft nf
Western Carolina that their only
and future hope of a svstem of rail-
roads, piercing the mountains, lies
in the Republican party ; for, twice
now, this Democratic Legislature
has had it in its power to say
whether the people of Western
North Carolina shall have a Rail
road or not.
The Influence of $11200 A
Question of Why and When ?
It has been frequently suggested,
that, the State Printing was given
to the News in 1872 because the Sfen-
linel failedgo support Vance for the
senate alter ne naa received me
caucus nominaiioii oi mo uvwu
cratic party.
The questio n always has been :
Why did the Sentinel not support
Vance?"
The Sentinel has always alleged
that it supported neither Merrimon
nor Vance, because Graham was its
choice. But that paper now says
"the times are too disjointed to
trust Graham," and surely this was
a sufficient reason why the Sentinel
did not urge Governor Graham for
the Senate. But why prefer a man
who is not to be trusted in these
times, to Merrimon, or Vance,
either of whom can be trusted ? es
pecially Merrimoniwho, about
the "time of this C Senatorial
contest had credit at the Ral
eigh National Bank sufficient to
make his endorsement of Jo Tur
ner's paper good for $1200. 1
The precise date of Merrimon's
endorsement of Turner's note for
$1200, which Merrimon has had to
pay, will afford a better explana
tion of the whys and wherefores of
the Sentinel1 s aolden silence in the
Senatorial contest than any hither
to given.
No reflection is here intended on
Judge Merrimon. But why should
Turner have proven more ungrate
ful to Swepson than to Judge Mer
rimon ? Or did Turner really nev
er borrow, beg or draw money out
of Swepson ?
Plain and unequivocal answers
to que stions like these will much
more interest the public than Jo
Turner's corrupt and trading oppo
sition to Consolidation.
The editor ofthe Sentinel has.
discovered that the Atlantic ana
North Carolina Railroad is mort
gaged for two hundred thousand
dollars under aprovision that a
failure to pay interest works the
maturity of the mortgage.
A plan to sell out tho said Rail
road under this mortgage in the
way indicated, for $200,000, is now
more than a year old. A certain
party has lately acquainted, the
editor of the Sentinel with the plan,
and his fight against consolidation
is part of the project to freeze out
the Atlantic Railroad. Turner is
n that ring, and a squire would
bring it out.
Jo Turner has given . out that
he never reads Republican papers,
but that he has a reader employed
to look out for what these Radical
nheota mav rav nf his Rutter-milk- I
swilling-Blue-mass-eating ..' High
ness.; That reader will find conge
nial employment over this issue
of the Era,
The time, ar
trust Graham, L
field. Sentih . VS
j This is the est ti
putation onth ' irpen
or ability has ever gon
William A.; Graham,
Manly and R. F. ArmfieL
The firstj was twice elec
ernor of the State ; served si:
in the United States Senate; w
-fjf. nf fhA nnd ved
I -
Honored as no man of the State has
been; selected, on account of his
high personal character and ability
as! one of the Trustees of the Pea-
body Fundy it will be news to the
people of North Carolina that he is(
n(tto be trusted in any capacity
his people may elect to place him.
. fThe second was for years a judge
of the Circuit and; Supreme Courts
of the State, and no suspicion has
hitherto attached to his name that!
he is not a man in every sense to bo
"r0
Colonel J Arm field has not fig
ured in public life ; but he Js well
known as a leading lawyer of
Western North Carolina, and it will
be news to his people that he is so
wanting in character and ability as
not to be trusted, however much the
tiines may be "disjointed."
The Sentinel keeps as a standing
conundrum, " Who is Sibley?"
He is not Oaksmith. He don't
sit in the room of the Sentinel Editor
after midnight, planning and plot-
ting to the damage of the State.
He is not John Robinson, the "Cur-
rituck duck" buying up aid-bonds
of the North Carolina Railroad;
nor was he of that recent " duck
ing" party ot wnich the Sentinel
Editor was one in Norfolk. Nor is
he a dealer in fuse, an article said
t(J be very handy in blowing up
printing offices, or that Editor, in
his peculiar line of business, would
doubtless have established a busi
ness acquaintance with Mr. Sibley
pjiorto the great gun-powder ca
tastrophe of 1872.
Fat Carrow, Treasurer Dave and
Governor Caldwell are all anxious
to1 fight us by ,$roxy, or with a sub
stitute, and we don't .fight that
way. we were opposed to substi
tutes in the late war. Sentinel,
Substituting, and fighting by
substitutes, was equally as honora
ble as being elected to Congress, on
a j peace or union basis, by Holden,
Holden's influence and his friends ;
and then coming back andlsaying
the reason he (Turner) betrayed
them was because he got "qVawf."
Frank Caldwell has finally,
though tardily corrected the Senti
nel in attaching the name of "Holt"
to a communication of his signed
Halt.
I The editor of the Sentinel knew
better at the start. He deliberately
falsified the manuscript, and sent
it to his paper to be printed Holt"
instead of Halt; and he also sup
pressed a portion of the article that
did not sustain him in the coward
ly, raeam and corrupt fight he is
making against consolidation.
If Jo Turner don't like fight
ing by proxy or substitute, as he
says he does not, why did he in
duce a friend of his to challenge,
without the slightest pretext or ex
cuse, a gentleman against whom
Jo Turner has a grudge but is two
cowardly himself to fight? Per
haps the malicious scoundrel and
mendacious liar will deny that he
procured such challenge to be sent.
Jo Turner don't like substitu
ting. Why then does he "substi
tute" paper furnished him hv
Secretary of State to do the State
Printing with, to print his own
vile sheet on. In the history of
this man "overdrawing" was one
substituted for af theft. Perhaps
in the political dictionaries of 1874
we shall find substitute made a syno
nym for the verb to steal.
If that Democratic Senator real
ly has the paper and affidavits , to
show that Jr Tnmoi- kiA. '
i - wuv4 u v UliS
own omce in i7r, let them com'
fprthl. If general reputation were p '
missible, some evidence' 'njigh'
introduced nearer home.