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official favor. The board of public works are remote from
the spot: they know not how the business is managed;
they get no additional compensation for the duty of se-
lecting these officers, and after that is over they are apt to
think that their work is done.
Who would think of providing that the State of Mary-
land should appoint the president and directors of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad? What had carried that
great work through the difficulties which had beset it
from its foundation and during our late unfortunate civil
war? What but the fact that there sat at the helm a
man of energy and sagacity; not that the State might
not appoint a man of energy and sagacity, but a man who,
with his friends, had millions of interest in the road; it
was this pecuniary interest, this mainspring of human
action, which caused a hawk's eye to be kept on every
inlet and outlet. This was the kind of element that he
desired to introduce into the canal. The State of Virginia
had recognized the necessity of this, and now proposed
to sell all her public works to private parties.
The question was not as to the right of the bondholders
to come here and ask to be put in possession of this work.
They had no such right. The State of Maryland alone had
the right to say where the management should be put,
•md the question with them was under what management
could this work be made a paying concern. This was the
policy \\hich would conduce to the true interest of the
State of Maryland. Who were these bondholders? One
was Mr. Corcoran, one Mr. Bayard Smith, one that far-
seeing banker at Baltimore, Geo. S. Brown, and another a
Mr. Allen of New York, and there are others. It may
be said that if the work is given into the control of these
gentlemen they would appoint officers to subserve their
own interests. Granted. What are their interests? To
make the canal yield a revenue above its expenses; and
what is to be done with the surplus? To go into the
Treasury of Maryland to be applied as a sinking fund.
Mr. Gill fully concurred in many of the views of his
colleague, (Mr. Carter. ) It was their duty, if possible, to
extricate this great work from all connection with the
political parties of the day. This, and the proposition
that it was necessary to give permanence and stability to
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