THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 211 



They secured a grant of nearly 50,000,000 acres of 

 public land, and on the security of this magnificent 

 estate they proposed to negotiate a loan of $100,000,- 

 000. As the estimated cost of the road was only $85,- 

 000,000, this loan would pay for the whole work and 

 leave a handsome surplus for contingencies. The land 

 is now worth, say $125,000,000, or perhaps more ; the 

 portions thus far sold have brought, on an average, over 

 five dollars an acre. As the country becomes developed 

 it will of course rise in value ; and it was calculated 

 that the sales would be sufficient to pay whatever of the 

 interest on the bonds the road might fail to earn, and to 

 pay the principal likewise at maturity. Anything 

 that remained would be the property of the stock- 

 holders." 



When the bonds were issued, they were offered in 

 Europe, but were declined. European capitalists con- 

 sidered the risks assumed by the road too great to ren- 

 der the bonds a safe investment, and they declined to 

 have anything to do with them. The company, thus 

 driven back upon a home market, resolved to make the 

 people of the United States pay for the road in another 

 sense. They made a popular loan of their scheme. 

 They succeeded in enlisting the house of Jay Cooke & 

 Co. in it, and Messrs. Cooke & Co. agreed to place the 

 loan in the market, using in its behalf much the same 

 system that they had found so successful in their man- 

 agement of the great war loans of the General Govern- 

 ment. 



The people of the United States were somewhat 

 surprised when they found Messrs. Cooke & Co. in 

 charge of the Northern Pacific loan, and there were 

 many that did not hesitate to assert their belief that 



