The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-01-04
TEXAS PACIFIC LAND GRANT.


The exposure Of corruption ant
bribery made by the publication O.
the Huntingdon Cotton correspond
enee has put it out of the possibili
ties that the present Congress will
give to the Southern Pacific railway
the land grant Of the Texas Pacific
In the light of the croOkedHess
shown by those letters, no Congress
man would dare exert himself in
behalf of the Southern Pacific. He
might be thoroughly upright and
conscientious in his advocacy of the
company's claims, and yet he
could hardly be expected to dis
play the courage requisite to the
championship of a corporation that
is self-convicted of buying Govern
ors, Territorial legislatures and Con-
gressmen, just as if these men were
VIGOROUSLY purchasable cOmmod.
tiles. And yet, as matter of right,
the Southern Pacific should have
the land in question. The whole
case is briefly stated. Congress
granted land subsidy in New
Mexico, Arizona and California to
the Texas Pacific railway COM
pany, just as it did to the Union
Pacific, Central Pacific, Southern
Pacific and others of the Pacific
roads. 1t is too late now to discuss
the propriety of the grant,
or whether there was corruption
in it, just as it is too
late to proclaim against the land
subsidy to the Union Pacific COM
pany. The grant was duly made
and the conditions imposed, one of
which was that a railroad should
be run across the territory to the
Pacific Ocean. The Texas Pacific,
discovering its inability 70 perform
Its part of the undertaking, assigned
its giant to the Northern Pacific,
which completed the road, aud now
asks for the land. The circumstance
hat the Texas Pacific failed cannot
igure in the business, so long as the
road was constructed. All that Con.
yress, or the country back of it,
was interested in was in having
he road built and operated. Con- =
yress did not make the grant for the
purpose of bestowing favors upon
,ne company or upon designated in
liyiduals. If.that were the inten-
ion of the act the granting of the s
would have been wrong in
and illegal to say nothing
If the corruption. A road having
been built across the country to the
Pacific, it seems clear enough that
he land grant has been earned, and {!
~ the company that constructed
he road. The equities are all with
he Southern Pacific, and it would
,e taking an unworthy and mean
advantage for Congress to refuse to
stand by its original bargain as i'm
,lied in the grant.
Aside from the rights in the pre-
nises, we believe it would prove a
wise act to let the company have
he land. 1t would prove beneficial
lot only to the State and two Terri
cries interested, but to the country
generally. What Southern Califor- {
ia, Arizona and the lower part Of /
New Mexico are to-day they owe to
he Southern Pacific. Take up that \
DAD and you would restore thou~
and miles of country to its worth> \
ess. desert condition and depopulate
region which is being peopled and
evelOped under the fostering care
f a company which must make the
Ountry in order 10 sustain itself \
IS soon as the railway gets title to
be alternate sections, the remain
er will be worth something,
whereas now the large part of the
7hole is only valuable for holding g
etter territory together.
CoNGREss0lEN SPRINGER, Cox and 1
theirs, good fellows all and true