Corporate Audacity: The Northern Pacific Land Grant Controversy

A Washington correspondent of the Anacortes Enterprise sends that paper the following interesting paragraph, which strongly reminds us of the 'good faith' of the Northern Pacific Company, of which we occasionally hear in the corporation organs:

Just as I expected, the railroad land grants have been setting in their work to some purpose. The House Judiciary Committee reports that Congress has no legal right to declare the forfeiture of any of these grants, because such action would be in violation of the provisions of the Constitution that prohibits the impairment of contracts. Here is a company to which was granted one and a half million acres of the public domain, on condition that the road should be completed and in operation within five years. This company not only did not complete their road, but they never even began its construction. After waiting four years without lifting a hand toward fulfilling its part of the contract, the company, with an audacity worthy only of a swollen corporation, attempted to transfer the grant to another company, which of course intended to appropriate it as the company might see fit, because it had no contract to keep with the government. The Interior Department got a pretty strong scent at this rodent, and nipped the affair in the bud, but the powerful lobby comes to the rescue, and the railroad bondholders will realize the full value of their securities without having invested a dollar in the construction. If the people don't like this way of doing things, they had better ask: What are they going to do about it?