Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-07-19
LAND GRANTS.
HOW RAILROADs HAVE BEEN DE-
VELOPED By LAND DONATIONS.


An Able and Exhaustive Review on the
subject--Goyernment and the People
BENEFITED by the Policy of Granting
Lands to Railroads.
The Land Grant Commissioners associa-
ton, at late meeting in st. Louis, appoint
ed James B. Power, of the Northern Pacific
railroad, W. L. Weber, of the Flint & Pere
Marquette railroad; Peter Daggy, of the
illinois Central railroad, committee to re-
port upon the advantages of land grants to
the people and to the general government
At the meeting in Chicago on the 10th, this
committee submitted an able paper, from
which re make the following extracts:
We claim that land grants have been of
greater value to the people and general govern
ment than the grants themselves have to the
companies accepting them.
Before the opening of the Western States by
pralr1es were efectualiy estopped by the one
item OF cost of transportation to market by the
Then only means, the wagon.
wheat, tor instance, hauled 300 miles by
wagon, would cost 80 cents bushel, its best
average value on the farm,-by rail the highest
cost for same distance will not exceed Is cents
a bushel, a clear IS cents per bushel in favor of
| the farmer. To Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and
Minnesota, this difference means seventy-iye
millions OF dollars annually in the pockets of
Its farmers on their wheat crop alone.
Another important and visible value of rail-
ways IN enrlchlng farmers and real estate own
ers, IS the enhancement of the worth of the
IN and n l,ocRl L.
lines of roads,
lake for illustration the field traversed by
the Burlington d Missouri river Road in Ne
braska. the Missouri Kansas & Texas, the Ce-
dar Rapids & Missouri River, Iowa Falls &
Sioux City, st. Paul & Sioux CITY. St. Paul &
Pacific, and the Northern Pacific roads, districts
entirely ne W, sparsely settled, and the land al
most exclusively owned by the United States
government at the time of the grants to these
roads.
The then extreme value of lands was the
government price, $l.25 per acre.
Reports from these roads show their aggre-
gate sales to be some 100000 acres, at an av-
erage of 1918 per acre.
1t is falr to assume thai contiguous lands
have an equal value, as rule however, rail
road lands are sold below the general average
value at which those adjoining are held.
1t we include the sales of land grant roads
in the older States, such as the Illinois Central
quette and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy in
Iowa, whose aggregate sales of over 3, 100000
acres averaged $10.25 per acre, the average
would be 1888 per acre, an actual advance of
SOL w per acre inuring to the immediate benefit
OF those holding lands along the lines of these
roads. Assuming that only an equal area of
contiguous lands is taken, the owners of these
adjoining tracts have been enriched nearly fifty
millions of dollars. We can however Illustrate
this point more fully by taking the broad field
Of the United States, in which it is estimated
that there 271 1873 900 acres of land directly
affected In value by the building of railways.
Including the older States this increase is
estimated at $3.50 per acre, which has added
to the wealth of the farmers of our country
the enormous sum of S., 800, 550, O0O-yet to
this amazing increase the farmer has scarcely
contributed anything save the accidental own
ership of the soil. Their actual money invest
ment in railroads of the United States is ascer-
tanned to be less than two per cent. of the total
capital invested in the roads that have SO great
ly enriched them.
On the other hand. however, the capital that
built these roads, and which has SO enriched
the people along their lines has not returned a
profit OF three per cent. per annum to it's invest
ors.
In addition to the doubled value and quick
sales OF its lands that we have before noticed,
the government derives large pecuniary ben
eft from the building of these roads. In the
matter of transportation of army and Indian
supplies, far in excess of what is usually sup
posed. From statistics of 1873, in the war
department., the only ones at present obtaina-
BILE by the committee, we find the average cost
OF wagon transportation on the most favorable
contracts IN the Western States and territories
was $500 per 100 pounds per 100 miles. The
highest railroad rate will not exceed Is cents
per 100 pounds for the same distance
One item alone of 3,Sz0,0O0 lbs. over the
AtchlSOn TOnnSa ~ Santa To roi1rool +b,t
made saving to the government of $3.50, OOO
The same year the Union. Central & Kansas
Paclhc roads carried government freight amount
ing to 33, 400, 600 pounds an average distance of
some 7OO miles, at a cost of S734,300. At the
average rate of wagon haul over the same
ground the cost would have been a clear saving
to the government on this one item of
So, 1874, 700.
With time taken to secure full data of the
government business, the showing would be
astonishing.
The United States land office records show
the absorption of public lands since the COM
mencement of the construction of land grant
roads in the border States and Territories, that
before the stimulant to immigration by the
promise OF railways, were except the settle
ments on the borders of navigable streams
almost entirely without occupants.
The dates included are the fiscal years end
ing June 30, 1864, and June 80, 1877, and are
as follows:
Wyoming 26,959 acres; Colorado, 1854, 71s
acres; Nebraska, 6,569,615 acres; Kansas.
1914 acres; Minnesota, 6,35O,l58 acres:
Dakota. 1864, 6S7 acres; Oregon, 1,4O6, Sl3
acres; Washington, 1884 1903 acres.
A grand aggregate in thirteen years Of
twenty-six millions, three hundred and five
thousand, three hundred and forty-one acres of
heretofore unoccupied lands, that to-day are
paying direct tribute to the government in the
shape of yearly taxes, and adding to the wealth
of the country by their products.
For the past nine months, however, the i'm
migration to the lands along the lines of these
roads has been unparalleled in the History of
the West-but your committee have only been
able to get statistics from Minnesota and east
ecn Dakota.
These reports show that in these districts
alone, for the six months ending April l, the
United States government has disposed of
l,O31 $50 acres and the railroad companies
1874 300 acres.
The foregoing figures relative to sales of gov
eminent lands represent only entries made I'M
der the presumption and homestead laws rep
resenting cash purchases by actual settlers,
procuring lands whose values are to be lastingly
enhanced by the railroads built and building
under the stimulus of land grants. The rail-
road sales are almost wholly to actual settlers
Inc foregoing facts are to great extent geu-
eral in their nature, and the committee would
have been glad to have had specific reports from
the land commissioners as to their respective
roads which would have certainly added
largely to what seems the convincing argument
already made, but the limited time in which to
collate them rendered this impossible ana we
therefore have to be content with such as we
have in hand.
Your committee, however, have thought it
advisable to make specific illustration, and
have taken the State of Illinois as the Oldest
and Minnesota as the youngest of the terri
tories that have reached their present prosper
GUS position as the direct outgrowth of the land
grant policy.
ILLINOIS.
As to the benefits to the State of Illinois.
Peter Daggy, land commissioner of the Illinois
Central, writes to the committee as follows:
1.-The grant to this road originally embraced