486 
Annual Report of the 
household, and touches every possible interest; and it does it every 
day, every month, every year, and all the time. 
We have only mentioned these subjects, because they are mono¬ 
polies which relate to the industrial interests ol the whole country, 
and therefore flow naturally into the subject of this address. We 
have neither the time nor the inclination to elaborate further on 
this occasion. 
The Government of the United States has expended untold mil¬ 
lions in the improvement of the rivers and harbors in the interest 
of commerce and the carrying trade, but it has never built a rail¬ 
road. It has, however, from time to time made extensive grants of 
land in aid of railroads, but you all know how this has been done. 
It has granted every alternate section and charged the same price 
for what remained as it would have charged for the whole if no 
grant had been made. This of course has been done upon the 
theory that the remaining lands would be worth as much, or more 
than the whole land without a railroad, and that purchasers could 
better afford to pay 20 shillings per acre with a railroad, than 10 
shillings without one, and generally such grants have been made 
in the hope and belief that the country would sooner be settled and 
cultivated. Yet after all, those who have purchased the even sec¬ 
tions, have actually paid for the odd sections granted in aid of rail¬ 
roads. Whether on the whole this has been good policy on the 
part of the Government, it it not worth while now to decide. 
We have only alluded to the fact to show that railroads have 
been favored by the Government ever since their introduction into 
the country, or ever since their general usefulness has been appre¬ 
ciated. Especially have these grants been made in aid of roads in 
the Western States. Here was the land and here was the country 
to be settled and improved. The Eastern and older states never 
quite approved of this policy, but enough of them generously 
yielded to enable it to be carried out. 
In early days when we all wanted railroads we all approved of it 
here. Hot only were grants of land thus made, but the people in 
nian}^ instances and very generally voted municipal aid of towns 
and counties, and gave farm mortgages, either as a loan or as a gift 
in aid of the building of railroads. This aid of every description 
was uniformly placed in the h&nds of corporations previously form¬ 
ed for building the roads, and it has so happened, unfortunately we 
