The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1870-05-18

piate, to equipit, and open it ready for
business to the public, is one thing.
What is called for in the way of sub7tan-
tial, efficient aid toward the same result
is quite another thing. 1t is a perversion,
allow me to say, of all sound policy as
J between the government and It's citizens
to hold or for congress to admit by legis-
| lation, that the government shall in any
| case put into the hands of railroad com
pany all the means required to cCmplet the
road, in its rOad-bed, IN its irJl, in ils
| equipments, so as Ia give the road sub-
stantially when finished 10 the company
as its property out and out This IS not
| aiding tl8e company To build the road IL
| is building the road for it. it Is a paral-
ysis of all individual energy; il is
| sitting of the wholesome free action Of
private enterprise.
Nor is this all The effect of
| the system pursued by congress on the
morals Of the country was necessarily
most mischieYous. Congress tempted the
people. Itheld out lure to a class of
our citizens naturally too speculative l
| mean the railroad men OF the United
States. 1t filled them with a fever of
railroad adventure and by the prospect
of immense gains to be realized out of
congressional subsidies it excited them to
engage in great railroad enterprises with
out much or any reference to the legiti-
mate profits of the undertaking. Worst
of all, the system vitiated all legislation
IN congress on the subject of aid to rail
roads, and rendered q return to wholesome
principles well nigh if not wholly i'm
practicable.
The abuses of the past in congress rise
up against all reformation. What was
then yielded as a special favor is now
claimed as a settled right. What was an
exceptional excess of the public hberality
in the imminent emergencies of the war
has now passed into an ordinary prece-
dent. To-day, in the midst of peace with
one completed railway in full operation
from the Atlantic to'the Pacific the rail
road company interested in this bill is
here demanding Of US to be put on war
footlng-on the vantage-ground OF that
military necessity which knows no law
and admits of no impossibility. If we
hesitate we are censured. We are found
guilty of a great wrong if, with the best
good Will to forward the building of tie
road, we aim at the same time to protect
the general interests and maintain the
efficiency of the public land system by
keeping the land free to the settler while
VIC give luC PIOCSSu9 ~ tIIS ldi4lOaN COL4-
pany.
WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN GIVEN THE
COMPANY.
The grant as made to the company in
1864, was dictated by itself 1t gave the
company forty-seven million acres, to be
selected out of the odd sections in bolt
of one hundred miles wide by length
stated by Commissioner Wilson, in his
letter of June D. 1865, already mentioned
by me, at two thousand and twenty
miles. With that grant it was thsn en-
tirely satisfied 1t might we'll be satisfied
No such grant had ever before been made
or dreamed of in the history of our gov
ernment 1t is double the land grant
made to the Union Pacific Railroad Com
pany, which was the next largest made.
In value it is out of all comparison with
the Union Pacific grant, for tits at least
| four or five times as valuable, acre for
acre.
Sir, it is not much to say that no such
grant was ever before made by our gov
ernment. None such has been made
within the last one hundred and fifty or
two hundred years by any government
| in Europe t0=any private corporation,
nor indeed to any grantee. No emperor
/ ,
| his power, would venture on such a spo-
liation of his country Considering the
wide difference between to-day in the
United States, with all its golden promise,
! and q hundred years ago in India, l
| greatly doubt whether the grant made in
1864 to the Northern Pacific Railroad
Company is not equal in all real elements
of wealth, prosperity and power to the
vast Indian possessions held in the latter
part of the last century by the East In
dia company, the mightiest chartered
company the world has ever seen, or l
hope will ever see again.
1t was a great grant, and the day II
was made 1t was ample to build the road
The company meant it should be, and had
it made accordingly. Allowing for al
conceivable deficiencies, it IS at least one
half more valuable to-day than it was IL
1864, such has been the great rise in the
value of the lands, owing mainly to the
European immigration; a rise that IS go
ing on and will go on increasing from
year to year for the next twenty years
The grant therefore, is much more thar
ample now to complete the work.
WHAT THE COMPANY DEMANDS.
After going into particulars of the de
mand of the company under the bill as
subsequently passed the senate, Mr. Cas-
serly sand;
The grant makes belt of one hundre
and twenty miles wide by over two thou
sand five hundred miles long. This
supposing the company to content ItseI
with point of divergence, say five t
L, six hundred miles east of its terminus
supposing it to refrain from shifting tina
point still further to the east, and {
course giving to itself that much NOR
land. Now, what is twenty-five hundre
miles long BIZ one hundred and twent
:. miles wide? 1t is tract of country cor
u tanning three hundred thousand squaI
: miles. In all New England there are NJ
: sixty thousand square miles, and this be
of country, five times as extensive, wraI
q up q future which may well be, IN i
II moral aspects at least as great as that
Il New England, and which in all its mat
J. rial aspects must be very far superior
/ is one half larger than the collected ar
n of the great states of New York, Penl
II sylvania Virginia, and North Carolin
e, It exceeds by sixty thousand square mil
le the entire territory of Ohio, Indian
81 Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Sen
e tors who favor this bill have said much
70 us about railroads. Of course they ha
c. developed the country. Nobody here d
W MES that Nobody here or elsewhere
re opposed to them. But suppose for L
& last fifty years that great north-weste
territory had been wrapped up in o
to railroad company, surrendered to o
Is railroad by broad belts of land crossing
S; in every direction and covering nearly
At its lands, what, have been the resul
OF If the railroads have made the count
/ rich and populous, as is said, it has be
1t their competition, not by their havi
K K anywhere m onopoly over a vast distri
j. THE POLICY OF VAST LAND GRANTS.
~ The policy of vesting the public lar
~ ~ in great bodies in private corporation
'' which has been very often thrown in {
- faces as the policy of the countr!
III took its rise in 1850, but it owes its pr
.. ent enormous development to the i
:. eight years. As so developed it is not
a. American policy in reference to pub
'Ai lands as established and administered
-. so many years before 1850. That poll
7SS as sustained and advocated by our gre
est men, was generally and with no Sc
"a | o,,s cbanra l,efora 12S0 n rolicv VIII