10 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



the limits of ordinary conservative capital and a new class of 

 promoters was developed men who were able to build roads 

 without capital of their own and at the expense of the people. 1 

 The desire for greater transportation facilities led towns, counties, 

 states, and the federal government to furnish a large part of 

 the means of construction in the shape of loans or donations 

 of bonds, purchases of stock, and grants of land. 2 Not satisfied 

 with public charity, the promoters appealed to private individ- 

 uals along the right of way, and more particularly to farmers 

 who would be benefited by the new road. A great many shares 

 were thus disposed of to the unsuspecting farmers, who fre- 

 quently paid for them by giving mortgages on their farms, 

 and who expected to get good returns on the stock and at the 

 same time to assist in the creation of a highway which would 

 enable them to market their products more readily. 3 



The farmer was doomed to disappointment in both of his 

 expectations. The dividends on stock did not materialize, 

 and the new transportation was not cheap enough to offset the 

 increased competition. As a result of the operations of con- 

 struction rings and unscrupulous directors many of these roads 

 went through receiverships and reorganizations in the course 

 of which the stock purchased by the farmers and municipalities 

 was not seldom wiped out. 4 The farmer who had invested 

 with a view to the development of the country thus found himself 

 with a mortgage on his land, his railway stock worthless, and 



1 Nation, xx. 148 (March 4, 1875). 



2 E. R. Johnson, American Railway Transportation, ch. xxii; W. W. Cook, 

 The Corporation Problem, 96-99; J. B. Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land in 

 Aid of Railways; J. W. Million, State Aid to Railways in Missouri; C. W. Pierson, 

 " The Rise of the Granger Movement," in Popular Science Monthly, xxxii. 202 

 (December, 1887); F. A. Cleveland and F. W. Powell, Railroad Promotion and 

 Capitalization, chs. xii-xiv. 



3 Johnson, American Railway Transportation, 320; Cook, Corporation Problem, 

 28; J. W. Gary, Organization and History of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul 

 Railway Company; J. G. Thompson, The Rise and Decline of the Wheat Growing 

 Industry in Wisconsin, ch. ix. An investigation into the records of eight counties 

 in Wisconsin disclosed about thirteen hundred of these mortgages amounting to 

 more than a million and a half dollars. R. E. Smith, The Wisconsin Granger 

 Movement (Ms.). 



4 Nation, xx. 148 (March 4, 1875). 



