OCR Text |
Show LAND GRANTS FOR RAILROADS AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 379 21 percent of its entire area. Other states which had received large donations from the Federal government for swampland improvement and internal improvements also used a good deal of their land for railroads, as the following table indicates: State Grants for Railroads Acres Arkansas........ 622,850 Florida.....____ 9,048,693 Iowa__________ 502,581 Michigan_______ 1,695,510 Minnesota______ 2,858,584 Kansas________ 407,771" Nebraska_______ 498, 742b Texas_________ 35,191,738 Maine........... 711,722 Total......... 51,133,620 (net of 48,883,372) n The Kansas lands were sold, not given, to the railroads. Of the lands in this table all but the Texas and Maine lands had come to the states from grants cut out of the public domain. b Sheldon, Land Systems and Land Policies, p. 213, gives different amounts for the Nebraska grants. Railroads as Land Dispensers Federal Coordinator of Transportation Joseph B. Eastman, as part of his great study, Public Aids to Transportation, found that a total of 131,230,358 acres of public land was given by Congress for railroad construction of which 3,893,074 has to be deducted for errors in patenting and conflicts in titles, leaving a net of 127,337,284 acres. The gross total of Federal and state grants is given as 176,220,656 acres. This total excludes the 37 million acres which were granted but later forfeited because the grantee had not conformed to the requirements of the donation. For many years the railroads held control over these subsequently forfeited lands and as a result settlement was held up. Next to the states, the railroads were the greatest secondary dispensers of lands in the United States. Their management policies in advertising, pricing, credit, classification, withdrawals from sale, development, leasing, all profoundly affected the areas of their location. In turn, their policies were curbed and moderated by the abundance of public land in the midst of railroad lands. The primary objective of the railroads, other than making a profit, was the building up of traffic.106 Generally they were concerned to develop the government lands in their vicinity, though it is understandable that they should have pushed the sale of their own lands more since the land grant was expected to provide part of-and in some instances practically all-the cost of construction. Furthermore, the land bonds based on a mortgage on the lands were to be retired from income from the grant. Added to all these considerations was the political one that never could be ignored: public opinion wanted the lands sold as quickly as possible and at prices that were not out of line with those the states and speculators were asking for their lands. Like government land policies, railroad land policies were rarely free from attack. Complaints were made that the prices were too high, that companies sometimes took advantage of the law to deny settlers preemption rights, that to avoid patent and consequently taxes, they delayed paying the surveying and conveyance costs, and that their delays in establishing routes and selecting lands kept at least twice the amount of land they were entitled to out of development, and that their influence at the Land Office was all-powerful. One student of "Railway Land Subsidy Policy" offers an abundance of evidence that lays the blame on Congress for many of the less favorable features of the policy. He points out that some grants were given states that had not requested grants and that were not willing 106 The Southern Pacific Railroad seems to have been somewhat of an exception, for it devoted considerable space in its advertising literature to showing how much more advantageous it was to buy land from the railroad than to preempt or homestead public land. W. A. McAllister, "Railroad Land Grant Disposals in California," pp. 273-74. |