The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-25
STOP SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC
..-. --.r LAND #.o ... r...
From the n. Y. Tribune.

From the n. Y. Tribune.
The sooner this land-grant business for rail
roads is now stopped the better. The other
day the Senate wrangled for weary hours over
a proposition to give a solid block of public
lands, fifty miles wide and two to three hun
dred miles long, to comparatively useless
local railroads-one of them running through
out almost its entire length within ten or
twelve;miles of the other. A Senate that can do
this can do anything We appeal to the
House to watch for and put its foot squarely
on this bill. For the rest, we ask that the
only remaining great through railroad to the
Pacific be generously treated, and that there
this giving away of the public lands to cor
porations be brought to peremptory stop.
We do not care to argue the question with
which the Senate dawdled away the day,
about the legal claim of the Central Branch
Kansas Pacific Railway to Government bonds
beyond the amount already issued. We do
not believe it has such claim, either legal
or equitable; and the Senate, more than once
or twice, has formally recorded the same
opinion. But if it has, we are utterly and
unalterably opposed to SO costly O mode of
extinguishing it. Let every tub stand on its
own bottom. Let the railroad enforce its
claim to the bonds. If it can make the claim
good it will get them. We can better afford
to pay the bonds thrice over than consent to
tu6 luIedt6utO dltoIndtlNo.
For it is nothing less than the overthrow of
the whole judicious system on which grants
of lands for public improvements have
hitherto been made, that is threatened. We
have consistently and most heartily favored
the great grants hitherto literally awarded.
We believe that every one of them has added
as much to the available area of our public
lands as it has taken away. 1t is case where
giving has not mpoverished-where the half
that remained was better than the original
whole. The railroads built by this means
have opened vast regions to travel and trade,
have made settlements possible, and brought
the market to the pioneers door. Every
acre of public land within a hundred
miles of the Union Pacific, between
Omaha and Promontory, was doubled
in value to the Government by the wise gift
tina made the railroad possible. But the
whole system depends for its virtue, for its
very essence, upon the rigid reservation of the
alternate sections. Abandon that, and you
| convert it from a benehcent civilizer, dot
ting the prairie with villages and covering
the plains with waving grain, to monstrous
incubus, a monopoly of land in spectators
hands, a wall that will turn aside settlements
more effectually than ever the Chinese wall
repelled the advancing Tartars. That thing
the Senate has consented to do in the case
of local road of insignificant importance.
We pray the House to stop this bill; but,
above all, we pray House and Senate to put q
peremptofy ban upon the baneful principle
Il promises to introduce. If we cannot pre-
serve alternate sections for actual settlers
let us preserve all. Better be without rail
roads for the accommodation of settlers than
! without settlers within twenty-five miles ol