The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-01
RAILROAD LAND GRANTS.


Several of the Republican clubs of
this city have petitioned Congress not
to grant any more public lands to aid
the construction of railroads. Let us
consider:
was the Illinois Central. Illinois is q
great State, with a very rich soil and
an energetic population, numbering not
far from one million when this policy
was inaugurated, some twenty years
ago. Hardly State in the Union has
a smaller proportion of waste or infer
tile land than she. Yet there were
large portions of her area which no pi-
oneer could be induced to settle, be-
cause so remote from timber that they
were practically uninhabitable. No one
would locate at a point to which he
must drag every board and post for his
buildings, every yard of fence, every
stick of fuel, over twenty to forty miles
of roadless and often miry prairie, since
he could do far better. Hence, civiliza-
ton and industry recoiled from the
great prairies, or only skirmished along
their edges But the Illinois Central
was chartered, and required to run a
railroad from Cairo in the southern ex-
IRENE of the State to Dunleith in the
northwest corner, with very long
branch to Chicago in its northeast; and
this road having q large Immigrant
from Congress, ptainly in the heart of
the great prairies {sifco the sI8el,e fnyi-
ting tracts had already been taken up),
was enabled to lay down lumber for
building, fencing etc., at every station,
for thirty to fifty per cent. of its former
cost, and thus to sen and settle lands
which till then could not be given away
on condition that they be inhabited.
We think the company made a grave
mistake in charging So to $50 for its
land-that it should have offered 40
acres to each settle for $50 in cash, so
additional acses for $500, 160 more for
$500, and SO on-that it would have
been richer to-day had it adopted this
policy, thus subordinating its income
from land-sales to its income from a
dense, energetic, thrifty population
along its track, filling its cars with pas
sengers and freight. We think it might
have added, ere this, many thousands of
families to the population of the State
more than it has done. And yet we
Judge that the State has this day half a
million more people and at least 5000,
100000 more wealth than she would
have had in the absence of her Central
railroad and the kindred enterprises to
which this gave the decisive impetus.
Turn now to the Central Pacific, by
which term we indicate the entire line
from Omaha to Sacramento. There has
been very much in the legislation Incl
ted by this gigantic enterprise, and in
the financiering of its managers, which
we decidedly condemn but the grant
ing of lands along its line in aid of its
construction we heartily approve. In
fact, we consider that the railroad has
l IL, 20
the United States than they have given
to the railroad. For the last thirty or
forty years, vast currents of emigration
have streamed up the Platte Valley,
through the passes of the rocky mount
aims and across the valley of the upper
Colorado Green river) in quest ofwest-
ern homes. Probably the number who
have thus traversed this forlorn region
has hardly fallen short of one million.
Rough. wild, and semi-savage, as many
of these were-inured to hardship and
agog for adventure-none of them
would touch this land, when any OF
| them might have had a county of it for
the taking, and though there were often
enough of them within sight to have
laughed to scorn all apprehension of In
dian hOstilities. Suppose now that two
hundred millions of acres of the region
habitable, whereof fifty millions were
given to the companies as an induce
ment to construct their road, is it not
an abuse of language to talk of the
lands given by the government to the
companies, while saying nothing OF
those given Gin effect) by the companies
to the government?
The case is far stronger with regard
| to the vast region known to us as Ari-
IONA. We have possessed it nearly a
| quarter of a century, ana had sn uncon-
tested title to it for more than twenty
years yet, though it is known to abound
| in gold, silver, and almost every metal,
and though every one is free to touch
| and take, we have not yet even begun
to open a thousand farms on it from one
end to the other. Suppose a railroad
could be run through it, connecting the
Pacific with the Rio Grande, at the cost
| to our government of the fee simple OF
strip twenty miles wide along its line,
who can fail to realize that we should
practically and really have great deal
more public land thereafter than be-
| fore?
We may recur to the subject. The
| system which has SO rapidly quadrupled
the population of Iowa, Minnesota,
Kansas and Nebraska, cannot be given
up. Doubtless there are abuses and
perversions which need to be eliminat-
ed, but the opening up of waste and des-
ert regions to settlement and civiliza-
ton by means of an appropriation OF
part of their soil to defray the cost
of running railroads to and through
them has proved too benefcent to be
| lightly abandoned or sacrificed to a
blind, needless prejudice.-Netc York
Tribune.