594 TH E IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



gate gross earnings of the railroads of the United States, 

 we shall find that for the past 20 years there has been an 

 excess of charges, over a fair rate on the capital actually 

 invested, of one hundred million dollars annually, or a 

 sum total for twenty years of two thousand million dollars. 



It may be proper to remark before closing this chapter, 

 that a number of bills have been passed working the for- 

 feiture of some of the unearned lands by the corporations 

 to whom said lands were granted. There is, perhaps, no 

 theme aside from the tariff that the politician does not 

 dwell upon with greater emphasis than the immense land 

 grants to the different corporations. It can, however, the 

 politicians to the contrary notwithstanding be truthfully 

 said that both parties are not without sin. As has already 

 been stated, the first land grant bill ever introduced in 

 Congress was by Stephen A. Douglas, Democratic Senator 

 from Illinois. From this time (September 30th, 1850) 

 to 1857, no l ess tnan forty-seven bills passed a Democratic 

 Congress, granting lands to the various railways in the 

 United States. These grants embraced about thirty mil- 

 lion acres of the finest lands belonging to the public 

 domain. 



Both parties committed themselves to the land grant 

 policy in their platforms in 1856, and again in 1860. In 

 1860 the Democratic party declared: "That one of the 

 necessities of the age, in a military, commercial and postal 

 point of view, is speedy communication between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific States; and the Democratic party 

 pledge such constitutional government aid as will insure 

 the construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast at the 

 earliest practical period." 



The Republican party the same year declared in their 

 platform : 



"That a railroad to the Pacific Coast is imperatively 

 demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the 



