204 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



of these railroads had the government undertaken 

 their construction. 



The grant to the Northern Pacific Railway is 

 estimated to have been worth $1,000,000,000. 

 Had the land been sold directly to settlers at the 

 prices later received by the railroad, five trans- 

 continental railroads could have been built from 

 the sale of the land alone. An exhaustive investi- 

 gation of the grant to the Northern Pacific was 

 made by a committee of Congress, which reported 

 that the entire cost of the railroad had been paid 

 for out of the land grants and that a surplus of 

 $41,281,000 remained to the company. The com- 

 mittee stated in its report to Congress: 



"The undersigned supposed that all that could 

 be asked of the government in the exercise of the 

 most prodigal generosity would be a sufficient 

 amount of lands to enable the company to con- 

 struct its road without costing it a single dollar of 

 its own money, and that either of the foregoing 

 hypotheses shows a surplus of many millions more 

 than are necessary for that purpose. It has oc- 

 cmred to them that it might be to the interest of 

 the people of the United States generally to look 

 after the surplus, whatever it may be."^ 



Mr. Wilson, for many years commissioner of 

 the land department of the Illinois Central Rail- 

 road, stated that if properly managed the Northern 

 Pacific land would build the entire road connecting 



' Public Domain, Donaldson, p. 889. 



