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Show 380 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT to accept them with the obligations they entailed. A number of such grants were ultimately forfeited after long periods of complete inaction. Carelessly drafted measures led to uncertainty about routes, about the rights of railroads nearing or crossing each other, about the inclusion of swamp or what the states tried to call swampland in grants, about the penalty of forfeiture for failure to build the lines or to build on time, and about restrictions affecting the right to select indemnity lands. But worst of all, Congress refused to give the Land Office sufficient staff and appropriations with which to press forward its surveys, scrutinize selections carefully, bring its records up to date, and require the railroads to take title and have their lands made taxable.107 Resentment Grows The West wanted internal improvements almost as" much as it wanted free land and was nearly unanimous in supporting land grants for roads, canals, and railroads. Yet it had a phobia against "land monopoly." When it saw evidence that railroads were not prompt in bringing their lands on the market and putting them into the hands of farm makers, the West turned from warm friendship to outright hostility to the railroads. It began to demand, first, an end to the practice of making land grants and, later, the forfeiture of unearned grants, partially earned grants, and finally, unsold grants. By the late sixties the same forces that had worked to end the treaty-making policy to obtain Indian lands were striving to halt the policy of making land grants to railroads. Reform-minded representatives from Illinois, Indiana, 107 Rae, "Railway Land Subsidy Policy," passim. Others who have brought out much the same criticism are Harold H. Dunham, Government Handout. A Study in the Administration of the Public Lands, 1875- 1891 (New York, 1941); Leslie E. Decker, Railroads, Lands, and Politics. The Taxation of Railroad Land Grants, 1864-1897 (Providence, 1964). and other older public land states reflected anti-railroad feelings, raised to white heat by the Grangers' fight for railroad regulation and for the retention of the remaining public lands for actual settlers. Organized labor, speaking through its journal, the Working-man's Advocate, and the larger group of citizens who were coming to feel that the railroads had demanded too much of the government and had been arrogant towards the public, favored ending the practice of making railroad land grants. They were partly supported by Joseph S. Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land Office, and by President U. S. Grant himself, who expressed doubts about further donations. After much heated argument in state capitals, in Washington, and in the press, and the presentation of petitions from the Legislatures of California, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to the effect that land grants were a "violation of the spirit and interest of the national Homestead Law and manifestly in bad faith toward the landless," Congress acted. First, settlers' clauses were added to a number of railroad land grants requiring that the lands being granted be sold to settlers at no more than $2.50 an acre. Then on March 21, 1870, the House adopted the Holman resolution declaring "the policy of granting subsidies in public lands to railroads and other corporations ought to be discontinued" and that the public lands should be held for the "exclusive purpose of securing homesteads to actual settlers . . . ." Notwithstanding this ringing declaration Congress in 1871 made one further grant-a large one to the Texas Pacific-though a modified settlers' clause was attached to it.108 This was the last grant, however. Forfeiture of unearned, partially earned, and unsold grants was to be more difficult io8 Marianne E. Weiss, "The Movement to End the Land Grants to Railroads" (Master's thesis, Cornell University, 1939), p. 97 and elsewhere. |