Peninsula Enterprise, April 20, 1882

Joynes Replies to Accomack.

Transportation -- Water - SteamboatsLaborers -- Farm

Editor of THE ENTERPRISE:

The Eastern Shore Steamboat Company has nothing to do with this discussion. They are giving the people, in the shape of three first-class steamers, and more when the business will justify it, a much abler defence than we can put on paper for them. They are doing the work at a rate that is satisfactory to the farmer; and that is the point we are trying to explain.

We will sum up the points in our last letter. We said, and we meant it, that we were not authorized by the old company to say a word, pro or con, for them. They knew nothing of our letter until it was published. We appreciate the compliment contained in the declaration that it came from the company, as the E.S.S. Co. has among its managers and owners some of the very best minds in the country. However, the ideas were our own, and were based upon general principles and facts which we clearly stated.

We said the directors and managers of this new company had no experience in steam transportation business -- we stick to it as the truth. It cannot be denied. We said that a company organized upon the basis that it was proposed to organize this new company, would be a cumbersome and unwieldy body, and that it would require the best sort of business capacity to keep it in order, to say nothing about fighting a company that is thoroughly organized, and has both the experience and the capital. We stick to this assertion. The chances of success in a contest so unequal are very small -- we see none -- by the light of reason.

We said that the people had an exaggerated idea about the profits of the business, and we cited a company that has plenty of business, but the rates and expenses are such as to make the stock not the most desirable. The E.S.S. Co. has not business enough to keep all their boats running. They go free about two months in the year; the balance of the time they are not more than one-third loaded. Now cut this up between this company and another, and certainly one or the other, or both, must lose money.

We said also that arguments were being used that had no foundation in fact, and for the purpose of exposing the fallacy of these arguments, and showing the absurdity of the enterprise, and in reply to questions asked, as well as the fact that there is no need of it, we wrote you that not only our friends but that our enemies might see and understand our reasons. We signed our name to the article because we believed it to be true; and because we are willing to be judged by it in the future. Has my worthy friend denied these truths? He admits them; but tells you to beware because we are interested in the old company. We say look at the facts -- draw your conclusions therefrom -- no matter who utters them.

He says we are interested in promoting the interests of the old company. We admitted that in our letter, and in doing so, we will show that we have been promoting the interests of a corporation that has been of the greatest benefit to our county. He says we are in the "camp of the enemy." Cast your eye from Pitts' Wharf, in the upper part of Accomac, take in Messongo, Guilford, Hunting Creek, Onancock, Finney's, Hoffman's, Evans', Boggs', Concord, Davis', Reed's, Miles', Shields', Hungar's and Taylor's Wharves, in Northampton county, and then remember that some of these places have been kept up at a loss to the company, and that the majority of them owe their existence to the pluck and enterprise of this company, and that out of about 120 men employed by this company over 100 are Eastern Shoremen, and then tell us candidly if you believe there is any truth in the assertion that we are in the "camp of the enemy." Viewed in this light, does not my worthy friend become the enemy of this progress and development? Does he not, along with those whose cause he is championing, become an obstructionist? Is not this new company bent on crippling the old company in its efforts to reach all the people? Why this new company, we are informed don't want to serve anywhere but in Pungoteague and Onancock. Here we get a glimpse of the narrowness of their policy in the very beginning. Though they profess to love the people tenderly and dearly, they don't propose to run anywhere but to places that pay. While the old Company is endeavoring to furnish all the wharves with steam transportation. Is this true? And we are called the enemies to progress and development of our county because we will not in any way support or countenance such obstruction?

Again, our worthy friend says they have men in this new company who have made a success of the water transportation business, and then wishes to know if there is any difference in the management when side-wheel steamers take the place of sail. If there is no difference, why drum around the county to get the farmer to put his money into it? He was never solicited to take stock in the wind and sail business. How is it that these successful transportation men, who have made money, are so very anxious now to take the farmer in with them? Is not this of itself proof that there is a "skeleton in the closet?" If they believe their steamer would clear $75,000 per year, how much stock do you think a farmer could get? If these gentlemen who are the originators of this enterprise believed one-half of what they tell the people about being "millions in it," nobody would be asked to take stock. They would borrow the money if they had to mortgage their lands and put the thing through themselves. Again, it is a much more difficult thing now for a man to make money in the carrying trade by sail. I wish to call especial attention to this fact, as many of our farmers have recollection as to its truthfulness. The time was when the people were kept in ignorance of the markets, and their produce and grain could be bought at prices below their value. Large amounts of money have been made out of the farmer in this way. Every day in the busy season the steamers of this company touch at the different lands bringing the latest intelligence as to the markets, throwing light of knowledge as it were, to the remotest corner of our county, and thus liberating and arming the producer against the wiles of the speculator.

Again, although the E.S.S. Co. could realize from $100 to $300 per month from the sale of liquor on their steamers, they positively prohibit the sale of it. There is no company in or out of Baltimore that have such a record. We think they deserve the patronage of the people of the whole Peninsula. We challenge our worthy friend, who talks about "war to the knife," to show us a company in the United States who are engaged in the steamboat business who have men at the head of it without a day's experience.

We would like to trace this obstructive movement to its source, for we have an idea that if the curtain were fully lifted it would reveal the personal animosity of not more than two people. You will always find that people who talk most about "keeping money at home" and "patronizing your own people" rarely do it themselves. We can prove this by the merchant, by the carpenter, by the shoemaker, and by the dentist. It is all right; we give a man credit for spending his money as he pleases, but don't let him insinuate that we are less devoted to the interests of our county because we won't have the wool pulled over our eyes.

The E.S.S. Co. is arraigned as being a foreign corporation by the very same men who are advocating the interests of the railroad company. We said that produce would bring 50 cents per barrel more at the foot of South street than on any wharf on Light street, not Bowley's Wharf. Notice how our friend dodges the point. The reasons for this are found in the fact that we have daily markets at the foot of South street. A steamer arriving every day, the buyers know where to go and what to depend on. It is convenient and roomy, and every effort has been made to make it the best dock in Baltimore for the sale of produce. It remains to be seen whether our people will join in the effort to paralyze the progressive spirit of the old Company, or will they stand by and show their appreciation of these efforts to give them superior terminal advantages over any other section of the country, thereby causing their produce to be thrown on the market at an advance of at lest 50 cents per barrel on produce and from 1 to 5 cents per quart on berries.

Accomac county is suffering now from the want of laboring population. Let this new company put on their boat, and let the fare be reduced to say $1 per round trip, and there will be a general exit of all the laboring population to the city. They would take at least one trip. Now, count the cost to the county in the actual amount of money taken away, to say nothing about the loss of time and crop consequent upon this ruinous competition and demoralization of business. And all this when you are told by them that rates are low enough. We put our genial friend on the defensive, and arraign him as an enemy to the full and thorough development of the county that is now being carried forward by the E.S.S. Co. Upon the same principle, why not oppose the Peninsula Railroad Company? It is more honorable to wait until they invest their money and you have reaped a part of the benefit, and then raise the cry of foreign corporation, and pounce down on them for the cream of the business? Should such a thing occur, you will find us where we are now -- opposed to your inconsistencies and prejudices, which shun exposure with the instinct of nakedness.

T. A. JOYNES.