Great Fortunes from Railroads | Page 4

get land for which payment could be gradually made?
But this law worked even better to the advantage of the capitalist class

than the old. By bribing the land officials the capitalists were able to
cause the choicest lands to be fraudulently withheld, and entered by
dummies. In this way, vast tracts were acquired. Apparently the land
entries were made by a large number of intending settlers, but these
were merely the intermediaries by which capitalists secured great tracts
in the form of many small allotments. Having obtained the best lands,
the capitalists then often held them until they were in demand, and
forced actual settlers to pay heavily for them. During all of this time the
capitalists themselves held the land "on credit." Some of them
eventually paid for the lands out of the profits made from the settlers,
but a great number of the purchasers cheated the Government almost
entirely out of what they owed. [Footnote: On Sept. 30, 1822, "credit
purchasers" owed the Government: In Ohio, $1,260,870.87; in Indiana,
$1,212,815.28; in Illinois, $841,302.80; in Missouri, $734,108.87; in
Alabama, $5,760,728.01; in Mississippi, $684,093.50; and in Michigan,
$50,584.82--a total of nearly $10,550,000. (Executive Reports, First
Session, Eighteenth Congress, 1824, Report No. 61.) Most of these
creditors were capitalist land speculators.]
The capitalists of the period contrived to use the land laws wholly to
their own advantage and profit. In 1824, the Illinois Legislature
memorialized Congress to change the existing laws. Under them, it
recited, the best selections of land had been made by non-resident
speculators, and it called upon Congress to pass a law providing for
selling the remaining lands at fifty cents an acre. [Footnote: U. S.
Senate Documents, Second Session, Eighteenth Congress, 1824-25,
Vol. ii, Doc. No. 25.] Other legislatures petitioned similarly. Yet,
notwithstanding the fact that United States officials and committees of
Congress were continually unearthing great frauds, no real change for
the benefit of the poor settler was made.
GREAT EXTENT OF THE LAND FRAUDS.
The land frauds were great and incessant. In a long report, the United
States Senate Committee on Public Lands, reporting on June 20, 1834,
declared that the evidence it had taken established the fact that in Ohio
and elsewhere, combinations of capitalist speculators, at the public

sales of lands, had united for the purpose of driving other purchasers
out of the market and in deterring poor men from bidding. The
committee detailed how these companies and individuals had
fraudulently bought large tracts of land at $1.25 an acre, and sold the
land later at exorbitant prices. It showed how, in order to accomplish
these frauds, they had bought up United States Land Office Registers
and Receivers. [Footnote 8: U. S. Senate Documents, First Session,
Twenty-third Congress, 1833-34, Vol. vi, Doc. No. 461:1-91.]
Another exhaustive report was handed in by the United States Senate
Committee on Lands, on March 3, 1835. Many of the speculators, it
said, filled high offices in States where public lands bought by them
were located; others were people of "wealth and intelligence." All of
them "naturally united to render this investigation odious among the
people." The committee told how an attempt had been made to
assassinate one of its members. "The first step," it set forth, "necessary
to the success of every scheme of speculation in the public lands, is to
corrupt the land officers, by a secret understanding between the parties
that they are to receive a certain portion of the profits." [Footnote: U. S.
Senate Documents, Second Session, Twenty-third Congress, Vol. iv,
Doc. No. 151: 2.] The committee continued:
The States of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have been the
principal theatre of speculations and frauds in buying up the public
lands, and dividing the most enormous profits between the members of
the different companies and speculators. The committee refers to the
depositions of numerous respectable witnesses to attest the various
ramifications of these speculations and frauds, and the means by which
they have been carried into effect.... [Footnote: Ibid., 3]
Describing the great frauds in Louisiana, Benjamin F. Linton, U. S.
District Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, wrote, on
August 25, 1835, to President Jackson: "Governments, like
corporations, are considered without souls, and according to the code of
some people's morality, should be swindled and cheated on every
occasion." Linton gave this picture of "a notorious speculator who has
an immense extent of claims":

He could be seen followed to and from the land office by crowds of
free negroes, Indians and Spaniards, and the very lowest dregs of
society, in the counties of Opelousas and Rapides, with their affidavits
already prepared by himself, and sworn to before some justice of the
peace in some remote county. These claims, to an immense extent, are
presented and allowed. And upon what evidence? Simply upon the
evidence