Daily globe., 1879-03-21
GEN. BISHOP TO THE FORE.
He Makes a Pointed Reply to the Charge
Ihut Has Company Aots Unfairly In
Land Matters.


Ihut Has Company Aots- Unfairly IN,
The jackson Republic of the 10Th con-
tains the following letter:
To the Editor jackson Republic:
ST.. PAUL, March 5, 1879.-You editorial
" announced in the Republic of March l
that 'we understand that the st. Paul &
Sioux City railroad company has lately in
creased the price of lands in the vicinity of
jackson and in fact throughout jackson
county, and on this text you destitute COM
parlson between this company and the
Southern Minnesota company as to their
general policy in the management and sale
of their lands. In this our motives are
called "short-sighted" and ''avaricious'' and
'reprehensible, our company is ''grasping
and puffed up corporation,' and its policy
''ruinous and unjust, ''our course 'sunwise and
| hogglsh," our prices are quoted at s'seven to
ten dollars per acre, and finally, after
praising the very liberal policy of the
Southern Minnesota company as to its ex-
tension lands, to which it has not vet ac-
quiredstitle, you say: "In the meantime the
Sioux City company permits its lands to lie
unsold and increases it's prices from time to
/
sold." Now, if all this is Just and true 80
far as we are concerned, it does not make
your county appear attractive to people seek
ing new homes. If IL is all untrue and un-
just, the injury to the county and to us can
at best be but imperfectly repaired by the
most complete and widely published correc-
tion' that is possible. The article, in full
| or in substance, has been already copied
into one of the St. Paul dailies and into sew
eral of your neighboring weeklies, and will
doubtless attain much wider circulation
than its denial can hope for. Permit me to
say:
First-That our prices have not been
raised 50 per acre lately, nor have they been
materially or generally increased. for five or
six years past, either in your county or else
where.
Second-That our policy and our terms az
to lands that We have title to are at least as
liberal as those of any other railroad COM
pany in the State as to lands that it has a
title to.
Third-As to lands to which our title has
not been perfected, our terms have been and
are as favorable to the intending purchaser
as those offered by any other company as to
I its lands in similar condition, and that we
had been offering these special terms for sew
| eIaA years Oe1Ore Iney were OuereQ Dy any
other company within my knowledge.
Fourth-That our prices are generally
lower and that our lands sell faster than
those of the Southern Minnesota clearly ap-
pears from the sworn reports of both COM
panies to the railroad commissioner See
report for 1873, page 10. Southern Mime
sofa lands sold January 1st TO December 1st,
1873, 7,437 acres; average price received $8
for 1877, and present prices $5 to SO per
acre. st. Paul & Sioux City lands sold in
same eleven months, 1926 acres; (more
than twelve times as much) average price
received $7.19 in 1877, and present average
price $3.50 cash and $6 on time per acre.
| OF the lands unsold on the 1st of Jan,
uary, 1873, we sold more than IA per cent.
while that company sold approximately 8
per cent. in the ensuing eleven months. !
have nothing whatever to say in disparage-
ment of the Southern Minnesota company,
or of its managers or Of it's policy. It is not
necessary, however, to misrepresent us in
order to commend that company, and you
are not aiding us in selling our jackson
county lands by such an advertisement as
you have given them and US. Yours truly,
J. w. BISHOP, General Manager.