RAILROAD LAND GRANTS. 99 



exempted from all the burdens to which all other 

 property is subjected. 



This immense area of the public domain is what 

 has been actually donated to corporations by our gen- 

 eral government and the State of Texas. But within 

 the limits covered by these railroad grants is another 

 area of equal extent that has been reserved by govern- 

 ment for settlement under the provisions of the home- 

 stead laws. This, also, comes under the domination 

 of the huge estates by which they are surrounded, and 

 are being absorbed and swallowed up in the manner 

 herein described and by the many other methods by 

 which small holdings disappear in the presence of 

 the great estates. Thus we see that under the pecu- 

 liar provisions of the laws making these grants, they 

 are made to cover twice the area actually conveyed, 

 and bring under their baleful influence at least 

 500,000,000 acres of the public domain, instead of 

 the 255,000,000 described in the grants. The more 

 closely the provisions of these grants are examined, 

 the greater is the monstrous wrong that is shown to 

 be covered by them. 



Estimated upon the basis of dollars and cents, it is 

 seen that our government has donated to railroad cor- 

 porations lands which, at its minimum rate, it now 

 values at $600,000,000, without limit or check of any 

 kind being provided for their disposition. It is noto- 

 rious that the corporations are selling these lands, in 

 blocks, to other speculators, foreign and domestic, in 

 areas amounting to tens and hundreds of thousands 

 of acres each, and also in small lots, to aliens as well 

 as natives, at prices varying from > ten dollars 



