was to their interest to delay the work as long as possible, for by
this process they could periodically go to Legislatures with this
argument: That the projects were more expensive and involved more
difficulties than had been anticipated; that the original
appropriations were exhausted, and that if the projects were to be
completed, fresh appropriations were imperative. A large part of
these successive appropriations, whether in money, or land which
could be sold for money, were stolen in sundry indirect ways by the
various sets of capitalist directors. The many documents of the
Maryland Legislature, and the messages of the successive Governors of
Maryland, do not tell the full story of how the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal project was looted, but they give abundantly enough
information.


THE GRANTS FRAUDULENTLY MANIPULATED

Many of the canal companies, so richly endowed by the Government with
great land grants, made little attempt to build canals. What some of
them did was to turn about and defraud the Government out of
incalculably valuable mineral deposits which were never included in
the original grants.

In his annual report for 1885, Commisioner Sparks, of the United
States General Land Office told (House Executive Documents, 1885-86,
Vol. II) how, by 1885, the Portage Lake "canal" was only a worthless
ditch and a complete fraud. What had the company done with its large
land grant? Instead of accepting the grant as intended by Congress,
it had, by means of fraudulent surveys, and doubtless by official
corruption, caused at least one hundred thousand acres of its grant