The concluding pages of the pamphlet contain a general charge against the commissioners, or rather Mr. Brooks, the chairman, of mismanagement. The only "illustrations" of this charge are, first, that Mr. Brooks declined to sell the 3,000 tons of railroad iron which had been purchased, and distributed along the graded track from Greenfield to the mountain, and "other saleable property;" second, that he has "disregarding the advice of others, whose judgment was entitled to weight, put his own constructions upon the acts of the Legislature relating to the powers and duties of the commissioners, in opposition to the construction and in defiance of the orders of the Executive Council;" third, he has seriously contemplated "the amazing folly of building the railroad from Greenfield to the mountain!"
It is gratifying to know from more reliable authority than the intimation of Mr. Bird, that Mr. Brooks did justify the opinion which is generally entertained, of his good sense and judgment, by contemplating that "amazing folly," and the only evidence of serious mismanagement on his part, which Mr. Bird can produce, is that he did not, at once execute his purpose, lay the rails and put the road in operation from Greenfield to the mountain. The additional facilities which the completion of this road would have afforded for expediting the work, and reducing its cost, are too obvious to be enumerated. The extent and value of the resources and material of the region through which the road passes, and the importance of their speedy development, have already been shown. The distance from Greenfield to the mountain is about thirty miles, by a very uneven and hilly road; and yet, in 1861, the amount of freight transported over it, was 12,350 tons, and the freight and livery receipts were nearly $50,000. With a good railroad in operation, in the place of a rugged highway, and the summer travel which it would induce, there can be no doubt whatever, that the local business alone would afford receipts very far beyond the estimates, upon which it is presumed the offer of the Fitchburg and Vermont and Massachusetts companies to take a lease of the road was based, that is, $21,500 a year more than running expenses.
Whether Mr. Brooks is responsible for the delay in putting the road under contract, and for the waste and damage which have resulted from a neglect of three years, or whether Mr. Bird did succeed, while a member of the Council, in procuring an absolute injunction, the public cannot now well determine, for, as the reader has already observed, Bird declares that Mr. Brooks had absolute power, that the whole responsibility rests with him, and yet boasts that he "did something" towards preventing the completion of the road.
Since the foregoing pages were written, Mr Bird has published and distributed another pamphlet, the remarkable audacity of which challenges our attention. If one half of the assertions it contains were true, if one half of its calculations and estimates could be demonstrated, the Hoosac Tunnel ought to be abandoned at once, as the greatest folly of the nineteenth century, and its ruins sacredly preserved as a monument to coming generations of a monstrous popular delusion: and if the epithets swindlers, tricksters, liars, plunderers, thieves, ingrates, rascals, traitors and fools which Mr. F. W. Bird, of Walpole, so freely and indiscriminately applies to everybody who has advocated or favored the building of this Tunnel, were deserved; then a very large proportion of several legislatures, a majority of several executive councils, and many distinguished citizens and state officers, including the late governor and attorney general, ought to be lodged for the remainder of their days either in the state prison, or the asylums for idiots.
This last publication of Bird's is mainly a repetition, "with embellishments," of his previous pamphlet, with the addition of a preface purporting to be the history of tunnel legislation to the beginning of the present year, a string of calculations and conjectures as to the capacity of the Western Railroad to transport ( provided it were properly managed, and the double track completed) all the Western freight and travel for all future time, and several pages of coarse denunciation of Mr. Brooks, chairman of the Tunnel Commissioners, and the manner in which he has managed the trust committed to him. The subdivisions of these subjects are:--
1st. Tunnel Legislation. 2d. Abuse of Mr. Brooks. 3d. Power Drills. 4th. The Deerfield Dam. 5th. "Porridge." 6th. The Western compared with the Tunnel line. 7th. The Possible Capacity of the Western Road. 8th. The Cost and Time required to Complete the Tunnel.
It is not our purpose to expose all the misrepresentations and perversion of facts to which Mr. Bird has resorted in the treatment of his subject; but only enough of them to show what disreputable means the foes of the Tunnel are capable of using in order to deceive the community. Late results in the progress of work at the mountain, and in the perfection of machinery, will enable us to illustrate the utter absurdity of several of the most important of Mr. Bird's calculations, or rather speculations, and enable the reader to judge what reliance can be placed upon any of them.
In a review of the history of tunnel legislation, as given in this pamphlet, passing by the frequent charges of "packed committees," "deceived legislatures," and "tricks of legislative legerdemain," we come to an account of the Act of April, 1862, by which it appears that the bill passed was not materially different from that prepared by Mr. Bird, and offered by Mr. Swan. It was entitled, "An Act for the More Speedy Completion of the Hoosac Tunnel," yet the anti-tunnel league considered its passage "a substantial defeat of the scheme," because they believed that Governor Andrew "was opposed to the Tunnel," and would appoint commissioners whose opinions were in harmony with his own. And the virtuous and honest member of the "Third House," through whose adroit management, a bill bearing a title so inconsistent with its purpose, was framed, affects a pious horror of legislative trickery!
Whatever Mr. Bird may have to say upon any of his various topics, he never forgets to abuse Mr. Brooks; "Carthago delenda est" at any rate; and he returns to the assault at the beginning or end of almost every chapter, with renewed spitefulness. On page 21 it is represented that Mr. Laurie, the engineer who had been designated by the governor and council to make surveys, had a personal interview with Mr. Brooks, and that the following colloquy took place:--