Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1883 — RAPACIOUS CORPORATIONS. [ARTICLE]

RAPACIOUS CORPORATIONS.

Hon. Joseph R. Cobb Interviewed on the Forfeiture of Railroad Land Grants.

The question of declaring forfeited 132.000,000 acres of land which were granted to Railroad Companies about the year 18641 s destined to become one of the leading questions with which Congress will have to deal at Its next session, unless, the Secra i ary of the Interior, Teller, takes the responsibility of robbing the country

of 1600 800,000 by declaring the ti- | ties to this vast territory, which was granted pre»enti, Jvested in Companies which have failed to compirwith their contract. In 1864 a great spirit of railroad enterprise took possessor theg.country The unexplored West awaited development, which statesmen foresaw would be greatly •acilitatec by having its distance | traversed by railreads. Hence a scheme was adopted by Congress to grant to edrperations every alternate section of land for a distance of twenty miles on eitner side of railroads which, in consideration of the grant were to be built by these corporations within ten years after the date of this conditional grant. A few of tuese Companies, namely, t&e Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, have complied with the terms of the con tract, and tnus 70,000.000 acres of the 200,000,000 which, in all, was thus given away has been legally acquired. The balance. 130.00 U 000 acres, is held by corporations, which, although never having built a mile of the roads they contracted to build, now come before the Department of the Interior and seek to have their titles in present! declared vested in them absolutely. Hou. Joseph B. Cobb, the author of the bill in Con gress to declare these titles forfeited, was called upon yesterday at the Bates House, and in response to a request of the interviewer, le said:

“Daring the early part of the long session of Congress I presented a bill declaring these land grants forfeited, and I moved the reference of the bill to the Committee on Public Lands, But the Speaker, for some unexplainable reason, took issue with me as to he proper reference to the bill and said that it. ought to go to the Committee on Pacific Railroads, I know that if it went to that Committee it would die, and 1 made a speech defending i from such a fate. Then Mr. Hammona of Geors gia, moved as an amendment that the ill be referred to the Judiciary Committee. I called for the ayes and nays on that vote, but it carried by a vote of seven, Ith n offered a resolution, which was adopted, requiring the Secretary of the Interior to furnish all the information available as tc the number of miles granted to each corporation and the date and term of each grant. Thar required a great amount of work. Other bills similar to mine baa failed, because .hat information had never been collected. it was not until during the last days of the session that the Secretary made his report under that re solution. Then the Committee had only a short time in which to act on the bill after it had gotten ’ the ne cessary specific information. ELows ever, out of the twenty seven grants named in the bill, they reeowmended those seven were the Texas Pacific, 14,000.000 acres. The Committee vo e was ten for forfeiture and one against, there being only eleven members present when the vote was taken. On the Northern Pacific, the vote was seven for forfeiture and eight against. Congress adjourned then before it had time to consider the report of the Committee, and during the short session last winter, Congress was too busy to take it up. Bull intend on the first day of the next Congress to re-introd jc« my bill. All toe information necessary for decisive action is now ready, and we can go to work on the consideration of the bill without the loss of time which was necessary during the last Congress. I find no fault with i ongrese in the matter But now since the adjournment of Congress these corporations come iq and claim that by this failure to legislate on the matter Congress has waived the right to declare the titles forfeited, even though they have failed to com ply with their contracts. The railroad corporations own ten billion dollars’ worth of pronerty, which is equal to one-t&nth of the value of all the property of the country. They have plenty of money, with which they employ the best lawyers in the country to fight theii cause. It they get absolute possession of this land they will hold it until it is to their interest to sell, and all this land will remain undeveloped until it becomes valuable.”