Year: 1870

waste lands of mine, rendering them ac
eessible and valuable, and VIII give you
ten per cent. of the lands affected. re-
gard this offer not as charity or gratuity,
for you have no claim to either, but I con.
slider it business transaction, in which
shall receive back in the enhanced value
of my own lands and the increased area
and constituency for taxation, very Emuch
more than this grant is worth to me or to
you" So farmer, owning q submerged
marsh which is absolutely worthless ex-
cept for rearing frogs, and, not caring to
venture his own money in the doubtful
enterprise of retaining it, would gladly
give q portion of the wet land itself to
any one who would ditch, underdrain and
render productive the whole.


The fact that the Government retains
the alternate sections along these Pacific
roads and offers them for sale at $3.50 per
acre, is sufficient guaranty that the rail-
road companies viii not hold their lands
at an exorbitant figure; and the fact that
the business and success OF the roads VIII
depend very largely upon the rapidity
with which the adjacent lands are settled,
is ample warrant that the railroads viii
not long hold their lands out of the mar
ket. Selfinterest and the public good
will here haTmonize.


The Northern Pacific Company, in
coming before Congress and asking for
the recent legislation, which has occa-
stoned so much discussion and misunder-
standing, requested four things: (t.) That
the original land grant, voluntarily con-
ferred by Congress six years ago, be made
good by permitting the Company to ap-
propriate other public lands TO compen-
safe for those belonging to the grant,
which had been taken up by settlers and
speculasors; (2.) That the short branch
road to be constructed from Portland,
Oregon, to Puget Sound be entitled to
the same land subsidy as the main line;
(3.) that the company be permitted to
make the junction of its two western
branches at point further east than the
original charter speciied,-this in order
to avoid engineering difficulties in the
mountain region; and a. that specific
authority be given the company to make
a single mortgage covering all its proper
ty and rights of property. This last re-
quest was made in order to avoid the ne
cessity of making fresh mortgage every
time a new instalment of land came into
the hands of the company by the compile
tion of each twenty -nve-mile section of
road. Under the legislation recently en-
acted, the lands of the North Pacific
grant will pass under the general mort
gage to the bondholders Just as fast as by
the completion of successive portions Of
the road, they pass into the control and
ownership of the company-and no faster.
The current assertion that the bill author
izes the company to mortgage its lands IN
advance of the construction of the road,
is without foundation and absurd. The
charter provides when and ON what con-
ditions the lands of the grant shall be-
come the property of the company, and
the recent legislation does not change the
charter in this regard, nor authorize the
company TO mortgage that which isSsetits
property.


The fact that tho application Of the
Northern FuCiffc- Company s1ae addi-
tional legislation named above was pre-
ceded and followed by the introduction IN
Congress of q swarm of petty land grant
schemes for local and imaginary roads
schemes havingi no merits and no claims
to OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES not be allowed
to prejudice a great and genuine enter
prise, which the people are really desirous
to aid, because It viii aid them in return.
to limit the application of the land sub
sidY policy TO the three trunk lines OF
Pacific railroad. Here the line OF dis
tinction should be drawn, and here the
nation should put down its foot. Let the
continent be traversed by Northern,
Central and Southern Pacific Railroad,
opening up the western wilderness, IN
three broad belts, to settlement and cul-
ture, travel and trade; then let local rail-
roads be built by private enterprise as fast
as population and business demand them
The land grant system, as applied to these
three main routes, is common sense and
sound economy. Carried to the extreme,
and applied to the numberless local cor
porations that are clamoring for aid at the
doors of Congress, 1t is indetenslble waste.