The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-03-29
Railway Land Jobs and steamship Sub

sidies-The Senate sustaining Them.
We apprehend that we were the other day
too hasty in our congratulations of the honest
taxpayers Of the United States on the defeat in
the House of Representatives of the public land
grab embraced in the Wisconsin, st. Croix
and Bayfield, Railroad bill, and in the rejec-
ton of the proposed subsidy of million pro-
posed in lieu Of the present half million
allowed to the Pacific Mail Steamship Com
pany. The House amendments to the afore-
said railway bill, including the amendment
striking out the land stealing section, and
providing that the public lands involved shall
be subject to occupation by actual settlers,
have been rejected by the Sena te-yeas 16,
nays 80; and it appears that the Senate Com
mittee on Post Offices and Post Roads have
agreed to move an amendm ent to the Post
Office Appropriation bill when it comes up,
authorizing semi-monthly mail service be-
tween California and China, and increasing
the subsidy of this mail line from half mil
lion to million of dollars year, which is
the very proposition that was the other day
rejected in the House.
The Senate thus appears as the champion Of
the railway land stealers and the steamship
subsidy system. With the rejection of the
House amendment, which took away from these
Wisconsin land jobbers the public lands they
had set apart to enrich themselves, and which
turned these lands over to actual settlers
under the Homestead law, Senator Casserly
moved an amendment that settlers along the
line of the road shall be entitled, at their
option, either to receive back from the United
States the moneys paid on or for their lands
or receive eighty acres free, in addition to the
ment was rejected. The bill has gone to joint
committee of conference on the disagree
ments between the two houses, and from the
decisive vote of the Senate in favor of this
impudent railway land grab-3O to 16, nearly a
two-thirds vote-the prospect is that few
days hence the agents of the railway company
and their confederates of the lobby will have
supper of oysters and champagne over the
success Of their scheme. This is probable,
nasmuch as the House vote by which this
land grab was thrown out was too close to be
reliable against strong pressure from the
Senate, and because these conference CON-
mttees on jobs generally 60 for the jobs, and
the house opposing it generally gives way.
Still, it is to be hoped that those members Of
the lower house who so bravely and effec-
lively opposed this land job in the outset will
not surrender now without at least full ex-
position of the outrageous character of this
scheme, involving, as it does, not the protec-
ton, but the dispossesson, of actual settlers,
and the turning over of their homesteads, with
their improvements, to the mercy Of this rail-
way monopoly. Nor do We think that the
House is called upon to back down from its
position on this steamship subsidy, should
the Senate insist upon making it a million
year. It would be wiser course to stand
out against it, even to the failure Of the Post
Office bill for this subsidy business must
come to an end some day, and we could ask
no more favorable time than this for de-
cisive check against 1t. On both these ques-
tons the votes of the House will be canvassed
in the approaching election for the next Con-
gress, and the members who may become
candidates for re election, with few excep-
tons, will be apt to discover, in their appeals
to the people, that railway land jobs and
steamship subsidies by the million are bad in
vestments for Congressional popularity.