The Athens Post

EAST TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA RAILROAD.

At the meeting of the Directors last week, Gen. Green made a proposition to relinquish his contract for making the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, the Company paying him for the work done and materials furnished, and out of which is to be paid what is due to sub-contractors and engineers, and referring to persons mutually chosen, to decide, if anything, he shall receive for such relinquishment, which was accepted, and M. B. Pritchard, Esq., and Professor A. M. Lea, of East Tennessee University, were chosen referees with power to choose an umpire whose decision shall be final.

TO THE PEOPLE OF EAST TENNESSEE:

A Committee of the Board of Directors of the East Tennessee and Georgia Rail Road Company in a report made to the Board on the 4th inst., says:

"It is well known to the Directory and the community at large that at the time the contract was given to Gen. Green, the Company had no available means with which to commence operations upon the Road, and that the credit of the Company was entirely destroyed."

The same Committee recommend:

"that the Directory should carry into effect the injunction of the Stockholders by taking the necessary steps to avail themselves of the benefits of the loan from the State of $550,000."

but coupled that recommendation with a proposition that I should agree to a modification of my contract, which would place in the hands of the Board all the available means of the Company to be applied by them to the purchase of the iron and equipments, and leave me nothing but Railroad shares applicable to the grading, materials, superstructure, turn-outs, water stations, depots, engine houses, &c., &c., from Dalton to the Tennessee river. They further required that I should relinquish all that part of my contract relating to the iron and equipments, and surrender the profit that I would have made from it.

Had the price of iron increased instead of fallen, since my contract was made, they would have required me to furnish it—the price having fallen, I was unwilling to surrender my just profits. This demand with other circumstances, to which I need not now refer, induced me to apprehend that difficulties might arise in the execution of my contract, and I therefore, as well to advance your interests as to protect mine, proposed a surrender of the contract and a reference of the question of compensation and damages.

The Board agree that when the contract was made, they had no available means and no credit. I have done more than one hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of work—the grading on forty miles of Road is nearly completed, and the greater part of the timbers on the Road. The Company has always been in my debt—they have not advanced me one cent, and their own Engineer stated to the Board that the estimates now due and unpaid amount to more than twice the sum due to contractors and engineers. I have given life to your dead Company—I have furnished and created the means to make your Road—I have restored your ruined credit—I have sacrificed my energies, comfort and health in your service, and hoping that under the influence of further investigation and mutual friends, an amicable arrangement can yet be made, I appeal to you, the people of East Tennessee, for whom I have done so much, as persons loving justice, to protect your interests and my feelings and character from the unkind aspersions of a calumnous press.

The Knoxville Register of the 10th inst. contains an editorial article, misrepresenting the transactions between the Board and myself, and charging that the sub-contractors and laborers will be defrauded of their pay unless it is retained by the Board, and paid to them instead of paying it to me. It was I who required, as a condition of the arrangement entered into, that the Company should pay the contractors and engineers. The Company owe me, and I required that the Company should pay the contractors, laborers, and engineers; and yet, the Register, bound to know this, maliciously assails my character by charging that if the Company do not pay them they will be defrauded by me.

I desire to aid in the early completion of the Road, and am unwilling to do anything to impair the credit or resources which I have so much contributed to build up, I therefore intentionally avoid saying anything that may tend to prevent an amicable adjustment, believing it our mutual interest so to adjust our difficulties. I am still willing to give to the Company all the aid I can, consistently with what is due to my own rights, interests and character. These, it is my duty to assert, and, as far as I can, to maintain, and for doing this, surely no liberal minded, honest person can complain of me.

I desire especially to avoid unprofitable newspaper controversy, because, whatever others may think, I know that it will greatly injure the Company. I however, will vindicate my own character, whatever the consequences may be.

Respectfully,

DUFF GREEN.