The daily gazette., 1882-01-11
wEDNEsDAx JANUARY Isss.

GRANT. : An article in another col.
umn will be found very interesting
reading, and shows the waste which
Congress has been making in the too
liberal manner of distributing grants
OF land to railroad companies, In
this case a committee OF Congress that
has examined the question of the
right to the claim for public lands
that is made by the Northern Pacific
report that that company has sold a
large amount of the land at So .7s per
acre. 1t states that stalking the reason
able estimate of SIS, 200 per mile for
1900 miles will cost $24, 900. OOO
while the value of lands tccording to
sales that have been recently made.
amounts, as we have just seen, to
$06,OOO. Deducting the cost of the.
construction, at $4,000 per mile. we
have an excess of $44, 600, 900 re-
naming as gift and gratuily to
this monster corporation, in addition
to 1900 miles of railroad. ;" "To this
must be added that the COMPANY have
already 700 miles of the railroad in
operation ; that in their last fiscal
year they earned in excess of all their
expenses, taxes, assurances aud sala-
ries, 1916, 00O." Notwithstanding
these favorable circumstances and the
valuable lands they might have held.
the Company failed to carry out the
law, and violated the charter under
which it secured the grant, AID in
consequence the lands have, by right
become again the property of the
United States. Those who read this
port Will readily see how easily jaw
Cooke q Co. would have become mil
llonaires had it not been for the manic
That overlook them in 1878. And il is
maintained by some of the best think
ers OF the country that this panic
would not have occurred at that time
had 1t not been for the scare creatad
by the prosecution of the Credit Mo
Dilier Spectators, and tracing the
rascalities of that great fraud to mem.
bers OF Congress, together with the
terrible contraction of the circnlatio,
oy John Sherman and Grant on the
memorable black Friday. Had jaw
Cooke been allowed to have con.
tinued the building of his road until
the demand for grain in Europe was
made in 1889 he would have become
one OF the great railroad kings and
equalled IN wealth the greatest of the
Wail street spectators. And this
might have been the result had Grant
aud Sherman not played into the |
hands OF the great gold spectators
and bondholders, by curtailing the
currency SO rapidly. Owing 10 the
Inflated prices at which everything
soid at that time the country req uired
nearly as much money to supply the
demand as it did last year, when there
was not far short of 81, 3OO,O 900, OOn
'Wp'. silver, and pans-ourday night,
edward kt She GERMAN, climbed into
! hay NOW 20 sleep, and fell down
narrowing shute. He was caught y
'RH"ldars. ,ah4 unable to- of In use !; but
Grant annexed lrman reduced the paper
circulation in 1878 from about ST.
100000, 600 to 5000, 900, 900, and only
stopped after black Friday, and when
Congress forbade the further with
dIawai and destruction of the green
back notes and ordered their reissue.
The Republican leaders and the COR
ruption that chopped out from their
leading legislators, was clearly the
cause of the hard times that followed
their exposure in 1878.