Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-02-23
WITHOUT TIE RAILROAD THE REGION
Is ONLY a STERILE WASTE.

Virginia (Nev.) Enterprise
Were the owners of a block of land to
i've half of it to a capitalist, on condition
that factory be erected by him on the
lands thus given away, nobody would
charge them with squandering their estate,
Were the aforesaid owners members OF a
Joint stock company, each having an equal
interest in the block, will anybody serious
ly contend that they would have genuine
grievance or such cause of complaint against
their Board of Directors as to warrant GUST
ing them from office? There is but one
answer. Instead of denuuncing the Direct
ors they would be most likely to commend
them for exercising business prudence and
sagacity; for they would recognize that
half of their land had been more than
doubled in value by the improvement
erected on the adjoining half. The vacant
land next the factory will certainly now
possess some value, while possibly the
whole block may have been utterly worth
less before.
The fact is very well known that land is
constantly given away by individuals as
well as by small communities, with pre-
cisely the same object-to enhance the
value of the remsinder. So there is really
no gift or giving away involved in transac.
tions of this character, but merely an ex-
change of equivalents-a bargain in which
each party believes it has secured an ad-
vantage. When we hear of the people of
wide.awake town raising means for the
purchase of real estate which they propose
to give away on condition that court.
house, college, asylum, mandatory, rail-
road shops or other public or private insti-
tuition be located in their midst, we all
know what it means. 1t requires no
very acute vision to see the string tied to
every dollar thrown into the pool.
Demagogues in the present Congress are
bowling for the wholesale forfeiture of rail-
road grants. Much of the olamor about
restoring this land to the public domain
has no rational basis, aud much of it is pos
itively dishonest. When the Government
makes land grant to promote railway
construction it acts from precisely the
same motive which impels an individual
to give away half worthless estate in or
der that the remainder may become valua-
BILE. The Government gives to the rail-
road builders only half the land along the
line of the road, The grant includes only
the alternate sections. The instant the
grant is made the Government doubles the
price charged to settlers for its alternate
sections along the railroad. The rate is
raised from 81 25 to 81 80 an acre.
a settler can get homestead anywhere
in the wilderness to-day for 81 % an acre,
but farm unconnected with the iron high
way to a market is about as Improbable a
thing as a man can we'll own. Build a
railroad into the wilderness and the land
at once acquires value. The Government,
having worthless land, invites capital to do
the building. The inducement is land
grant. Along the line of the proposed
road, within given area, there lies, say
10, 900, 600 acrss, which the Government
will dispose of to settlers for 81 % an acre,
at which price it is worth So. 500, GOO In
the aggregate. But there are no settlers or
purchasers. Without railroad the region
is only sterile waste. So the Government
concludes to make grant of 5000, 900
acres to whoever will build the road
through this wilderness, itself retaining
the other 900, 900 acres, to be disposed of
at 81 so an acre. Should the Government
sell it's ), 200, 600 acres (the alternate Sec
tions which it has reserved) at 81 80 an
acre, it would realize SO, 500, 900, exactly
the sum it would have received for the lO,-
900, 600 at 81 % an acre. Now that the
railroad IS built, the Government receives
as much for 5000, 900 as it demanded be-
fore for 10000, 900 acres.
Who loses by this operation? The rail-
road investors make a good turn, but who
loses anything? Certainly not the Gov
eminent and by the Government let it be
understood that we mean the people. The
agitation which aims at the forfeiture of
the California and Oregon and the North.
ern Pacific land grants is without excuse.
1t is carrying railroad feeling to un-
warranted extremes. 1t is not go much a
popular demand for land forfeiture as it is
passionate clamor for land confiscstion by
communists and demsgogues.