Hundreds of millions of dollars, exacted from the people in taxation,
were turned over to the railroad corporations, and little of it was
ever returned. As for the land grants to railroads, they reached
colossal proportions. From 1850 to 1872 Congress gave not less than
155,504,994.59 acres of the public domain either direct to railroad
corporations, or to the various States, to be transferred to those
corporations.

Much of this immense area was given on the condition that unless the
railroads were built, the grants were to be forfeited. But the
capitalists found no difficulty in getting a thoroughly corrupt
Congress to extend the period of construction in cases where the
construction had not been done. Of the 155,000,000 acres, a
considerable portion of it valuable mineral, coal, timber and
agricultural land, only 607,741 acres were forfeited by act of
Congress, and even much of these were restored to the railroads by
judicial decisions. [Footnote: The principal of these decisions was
that of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of
Schluenberg vs. Harriman (Wallace's Supreme Court Reports, xxi:44).
In many of the railroad grants it was provided that in case the
railroad lines were not completed within certain specified times, the
lands unsold or unpatented should revert to the United States. The
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States practically made
these provisions nugatory, and indirectly legalized the crassest
frauds.

The original grants excluded mineral lands, but by a subsequent
fraudulent official construction, coal and iron were declared not to
be covered by the term mineral.