Great Falls tribune., 1921-08-22
"Play the Game Fair .

~ Great FallS DAI4y ASAOSA s~0
The Tribune to task for writing an
editorial article which criticizes the
proposition to tax the Northern
Pacific Railway company at the
rate of $5 an acre for reserved
mineral rights in land they have
sold to settlers with a mineral
reservation clause in the deed. The
Leader says:
The facts are that the North
ern Pacific railroad robbed the
people of Montana of princi-
pality. and in addition to the
robbery now proposes to hold
up the people of the state to
whom they have sold land pre-
sented to them by the state.
The Northern Pacific railway
robbed the people of the state
and it is not too strong to
call it robbery-of 40 miles
wide and 624 miles long in the
state of Montana through re-
eeiving a subsidy from the
state of that amount in return
for the railroad building
through the state! Can you
beat it?
The Leader says it wants to
play the game fair" We do not
know how more unfairness could
well be packed in a few sentences
than to point to the above quota
ton. There is not word of truth
in any Of the statements made in
that paragraph. The Northern Pa
cific railroad did not rob" anyone
of the land contained in its subsidy
strip. It acquired the land by con-
tract from the government. A valu-
able consideration was stipulated in
the contract for sale Of the land to
the Northern Pacific railroad. In
order to earn the title to that land
the railroad stockholders agreed to
invest hundreds of millions of dol
lars in building a railroad. That
investment not only put value in
the subsidy strip that did not exist
before, but it put value in enorm-
Gus acreage in the hands of the
government that had no value be-
fore and would have had little if
any value now if the railroad had
not been built. But that is not all.
The contract also provided that the
Northern Pacific railroad in con-
sideration of these lands should for
all time carry freight and passen-
gers for the grantee, the United
States government. at very much
lower rates than its regular rates.
Our recollection is that this rebate
in one-third. At any rate, the
writer Of this article was informed
by Howard Elliott, president of the
Northern Pacific railroad, a dozen
years ago, that the sum total of
these rebates to the government
since the road was built and oper-
ated, if placed at $50 annual inter-
est would amount to a sum largely
in excess of all the money the road
realized from land sales and the
total present valuation of the un-
sold lands it owned. In other
words, the Northern Pacific rail-
road lands cost the company in
cash more money than they could
get out of them.
The Leader calls the Northern
Pacific Railroad company a rob
Der" and accuses it of being "hold
up" or highway robber because it
offers to sell the surface of its
lands while holding out the mineral
wealth under the ground. Could
anything be more unfair than that?
No one is obliged to buy the sur
face rights in this land unless they
are pleased with the price. AS a
matter of fact, the price is usually
low. In most cases the county as
SCISSORS value the land at more than
the Northern Pacific company sells
the land for. The editor of The
Tribune recently purchased a
Northern Pacific section. The coun-
ty assessor valued the land at just
twice the price the Northern Pa
eific Railroad company valued it at
when they sold it. Incidentally the
deed carries the mineral rights also.
The Great Falls Leader says these
are worth S. an acre. The Leader
can buy them from US at 50 cents
an acre. The proof of the pudding
is in the eating Of it.
Play the game fair. Years ago
there was big agitation and row
made over the alleged fact that