MONOPOLY OF TRANSPORTATION. 595 



federal government ought to render immediate and efficient 

 aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a 

 daily overland mail should be promptly established. n 

 Members of both parties have continuously and persistently 

 voted in favor of granting lands to railroads. This is not 

 a question of partyism in any sense of the word. It has 

 been said by those who seek to attain to partisan success by 

 the use of demagogism, that the Democratic party has 

 restored to the public domain over 100,000,000 acres of 

 land. In the first place there has not been the half of 

 that amount restored by any and all parties. In the second 

 place a Democratic House has never restored a single acre 

 to the public domain that a Republican Senate has not 

 concurred in. All such claims are the worst kind of dem- 

 agogy. Nor does it appear that Congress, in either of its 

 branches, were as ready to recognize the popular clamor 

 for the forfeiture of all unearned land grants as their pre- 

 tended devotion to the interests of the people would lead 

 one to believe. Secretary Lamar, in his annual report to 

 Congress, December 5, 1887, said: 



u Years have elapsed since many of the grants have 

 been made and other years since the withdrawals. Some 

 of the companies have constructed the entire line of their 

 roads, others fragmentary portions only, and others again 

 none at all; but the withdrawal of the lands were no less 

 effective as a barrier against the settlers in the one case 

 than in tie other. After years of waiting, Congress had 

 failed to empower the department to make the necessary 

 surveys, whereby sor^e of the grants might be adjusted, and 

 no immediate prospect of such surveys were in sight. But 

 a law was passed March 3d, 1887, (24 United States, 556), 

 whereby the Secretary of the Interior was directed to im- 

 mediately adjust each of the railroad land grants made by 

 Congress to aid in the construction of railroads." 



Thus it is seen that while years had elapsed since the 



