The record-union., 1893-05-04
THE LAND RINGS REJo1NDER.


It is evident that the men who have
been dealing in State lieu through the il
legitimate means of dummy applications,
who have been defrauding the people and
defying the law, see the end of their
reign. All that was needed in all times
past was publicity of the facts, and that is
all that is needed now. This publicity
in public property will be stopped. The
subject is involved in technicalities, and
it is largely for this reason that the jour
nails of the State have not heretofore es-
sayed the task of exposure. We are,
however, thoroughly equipped with all
the facts, and fully advised as to the law.
The land rings have replied through a
black mailing sheet in San Francisco that
the motive which has inspired this at
tempt at reforming the land system of
California is to secure to the Southern
Pacific Company, or the Central Pacific
Railroad Company, or some other rail-
road company, some advantage to accrue
by the exercise of lieu right. In addition
to being false, this statement is almost
idiotic. The Southern Pacific and Cen
tral Pacific Railroad Companies could not
acquire land except for railroad pur-
poses; that is, in the operation of their
franchises as railroads, and incidental to
such operation, it is possible for them to
acquire land. But they cannot become
general speculators, nor the owners of
land by purchase simply for the sake
of such ownership. The Central Pa
cific Railroad Company is a large
landed proprietor, but that propri-
etorship grows out of a special Act
of Congress granting lands to it in aid of
the construction of a railroad. These
lands were given in aid of public en-
terprise, and all construction of law re-
lating to the grant has relevancy to the
object which called it forth; but under
the charters of these companies they can
acquire only such land as is indispensi-
BILE or incidental to the operation of their
franchises as common carriers.
1t is impossible for men wholly devoid
of public spirit and incapable of honest
impulse in any direction to appreciate a
public-spirited or an honest motive. The
RECORD UNION, becoming acquainted
with all the facts, saw before it a plain
public duty, and entered upon its dis
charge. 1t knew then just as well as it
does now that the land ring could secure
at the hands of the black mailing press a
denunciation of its course on the ground
that what it was doing was in some sense
in the interest of the railroads of the
State. We are wholly accustomed to this
method of assault. When we opposed
the deposition of mining detritus on the
cities and valleys of the State, to the de-
struction of the navigability of the rivers
of the State, men were antagonized, who
sought industriously for some explana-
ton which would connect the railroad
with that policy. It looked wholly un-
reasonable to the public that the conserv-
alton of the navigability of the rivers was
in the interest of the railroads, and vet
the incorporators of the Southern Pacific
Company were in favor of preserving
from injury the water ways of the State.
When we opposed the deforesting OF
the wooded slopes of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, in the interest of preserving
the fertility of the valley lands and pro-
tecting them from the aridity which
would be the inevitable result of the
denudation of the timber, there were
people to say that the policy pursued by
US must have some railroad motive some
where, but exactly what, they were un-
able to determine.
When we advocated compromise be-
tween the hydraulic miners and the peo-
pie of the valleys, whereby hydraulic
mining might proceed without injury to
the private property rights along the
lower courses of the streams, the antago-
mist to this policy tried to break the force
of our advocacy by declaring that there
must be somewhere a railroad motive.
Perhaps the railroad wanted to destroy
the streams, or perhaps it wanted to en-
courage mining that it might have some
thing to carry.
1t is fair to presume that the railroads
have a motive when the railroad is inter-
ested in the subject, and no one not con-
genital idiot will find the railroads
motive to be other than the growth of the