lands for them... or the claim is made on speculation to sell out."
[Footnote: Reports of Committees, First Session, Thirtieth Congress,
1847-48, Vol. iii, Report No. 732:6.]

The policy of granting enormous tracts of land to corporations was
revived for the benefit of canal and railroad companies. The first
railroad company to get a land grant from Congress was the Illinois
Central, in 1850. It received as a gift 2,595,053 acres of land in
Illinois. Actual settlers had to pay the company from $5 to $15 an
acre.

Large areas of land bought from the Indian tribes by the Government,
almost at once became the property of canal or railroad corporations
by the process of Government grants. A Congressional document in 1840
(Senate Document No. 616) made public the fact that from the
establishment of the Federal Government to 1839, the Indian tribes
had ceded to the Government a total of 442,866,370 acres. The Indian
tribes were paid either by grants of land elsewhere, or in money and
merchandise. For those 442,866,370 acres they received exchange land
valued at $53,757,400, and money and merchandise amounting to
$31,331,403.


THE SWAYING OF GOVERNMENT.

The trading, banking and landed class had learned well the old, all-
important policy of having a Government fully susceptible to their
interests, whether the governing officials were put in office by
them, and were saturated with their interests, views and ideals, or
whether corruption had to be resorted to in order to attain their