A. L. Bishop — The State WorJcs of Pennsylvania. 203 



row, contracted views, from doubts of the practicability of the 

 measure on the large scale contemplated, or from dread of the 

 enormous expense with which it must be attended. If to this minor- 

 ity, any, even a small number, of the friends of internal improve- 

 ments were to be added, who might oppose the system, if their 

 interests were not properly and promptly provided for, the measure, 

 which at best was far from being quite certain of success, would 

 have been inevitably prostrated. It was therefore imperiously 

 necessary to conciliate these members as the sine qua non of suc- 

 cess. This is what is vulgarly called 'log-rolling,' the result of a 

 spirit of compromise."* 



Again, the evidence of Governor Ritner is to the point. Refer- 

 ring to the public works in his messagef to the legislature of Decem- 

 ber 6th, 1836, he said :— 



"Pennsylvania has 600 miles of completed canal and 120 of fin- 

 ished railroad. Yet such has been the ruinous and detached system 

 pursued in their construction, that only 455 miles of this whole 

 length are now to any useful extent in operation. The Susque- 

 hanna division from Duncan's Island to IN^orthumberland, 39 miles, 

 the whole of the North Branch, 73% miles, the "West Branch, 72 

 miles, the Beaver division, 24% miles, the Prench Creek division, 

 221/4 miles, and the French Creek Feeder, 23 miles, forming a 

 length of canal 2541/4 miles, as will appear by the report of the 

 canal commissioners, scarcely pay their lock-keepers, though a great 

 portion of them have been completed for years."$ Reference was 

 then made by contrast to the main line, whose revenue was more 

 promising. The conclusion is : — -"The difference arises from the 

 fact that the one class of improvements are not only complete in 

 themselves, but have completed the object of their construction; 

 while the others are mere disjointed beginnings of an immense 

 whole, whose plan was never perfected, and whose present con- 

 dition is a sad proof of the selfishness of sectional jealousy and 

 log-rolling legislation." 



It seems hardly necessary to supplement these quotations by 

 others that are available§ in order to arrive at the correct reason 



* Ca-rey, Brief View of the System of Internal Improvements of the State 

 of Pennsylvania (1831), p. 13. 



t J. H. Rep., 1836-7, II, pp. 28-29. 



J The canal commissioners in their report for 1836 stated that the revenue 

 from the public works was derived almost entirely from the main line. 



§Niles' Eeg., XXXVII, p. 212; Publius, The State Debt, p. 11; Report on 

 Inland Xa^igation and Internal Improvement read in the House of Represen- 

 tatives, Feb. 2(jth, 1820, p. 5; Report of House Committee relative to the 

 Gettysburg Railroad, in J. H. Rep., 1838-9, II, Part II, p. 16. 



