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THE COURIER
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NEBRASKA'S APPARENT HOSTILITY TO RAILROADS.
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BY THE HONORABLE J. W. JOHNSON.
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Secretary of Uio Nebraska State Board of Transportation.
M I VO understand the causes for apparent hostility of the prop's
I of Nebraska towards railroads, it is necessary to know the
1 conditions peculiar to this state, under which the railroad in
terests and farming interests have grown side by side during the
last twenty-five years.
Uncle Sam looked out over his broad domains and saw a patch of
rich prairie land, two hundred miles wide and four hundred miles
long, uninhabited, unproductive, without value, bringing in no re
venue to the general government, and serving no 'useful purposee to
man. To change these conditions and convert this prairie wilder
ness into farmer's homes and cornfields was the natural impulse of a
"government whose strength and prosperity is in the policy that each
citizen may own his home. On this pnfirie food producing was the
only possible industry. "I will sell this land to farmers in small
pieces at a mere nominal price," said Uncle Sam, and he offered it at
IL25 per acre; but there were no buyers. There were thousands of
homeless farmers, willing to endure the hardships of frontier life;
but they had no money to pay even a poor man's price; besides, the
country was hundreds of miles from market, and farming without
transportation was impracticable. Railroad transportation was ab
solutely necessary. Railroads require tonnage from the very start,
and on this wild prairie it would take years to build up a farming
community that would produce any considerable amount of tonnage.
Other states had been pioneered by the farmer first; but in these
other states various other industries were practicable, and these
other industries established local trade stations, made home mar
kets that could be reached by wagon transportation; and the far
mer pioneer lived many slow but happy years on the frontier before
he heard the whistle of the locomotive. But here was a state that
could develop only the farming industry, and its market was hun
dreds of miles away. The railroad must bo the pioneer. In other
states the farmer had been the pioneer, and the railroad had come
only after the communities had been established, the industries
partly developed, and the tonnage prepared.
To build railroads requires labor, labor demands the cash and
takes no risk, and so the creation of these necessary transportation
facilities was dependent on either capitalists or the government for
funds. The government had no fund that it could use for that pur
pose. The government had faith in the ultimate success of the en
terprise, but it had no money. The capitalist had money but his
faith was weak. The proposition to establish a successful farming
community on a then almost rainless prairie, was tinged with much
uncertainty. "When I have parted with my cash," said tb.9 capital
ist, "and have built a railroad on this prairie, will nature roVcrse her
laws and send the necessary rain, and will the firmer, hearing the
voice of the locomotive follow it up to the western slope? 1 can lay
down my ties and iron, and my locomotives will ride these prairies;
but will the American farmer, who has been trained as a woodsman
pioneer, face these brazen skies and endure life on this treeless
praire during the period of years that must elapse before abundant
rains will come, when he can rest in the shade of trees planted by
his own hand? To secure the co-operation of capital, the govern
ment found it necessary, not only to subscribe as a business partner
which it did in the case of the Union Pacific road, but also to grant
land subsidies to this and other corporations. In the case of the
Union Pacific a national necessity of far greater importance than
the mere developement of Nebraska, required the building of the
road, even at the risk of whatever extravagance may have been in
ridest to the enterprise. "In order to enlist the capitalist in these
western enterprises,' said the government, "and to recoup his rail
road interest against the early years of light tonnage, I will convey
to him as a part of the bargain, a small portion of this land; but as
between the former and myself I will remove every feature of bar
gain and sale, I will remit even the nominal price of $1.23 per acre,
and will give him the land free, requiring only that he build his
borne and become an actual settler in the new state.
At the time these negotiations were negotiated between these
three parties, the government, the railroad and the farmer, the ar
rangements were highly satisfactory. The two later parties to the
contract, entered heartily into the enterprise, and the rapid Jevelop-
at of the sew prairie state is one of the most splendid ezanplce of
material progress in all history. The rainfall increased with the
plowing of new fields, and as the settler pushed to tho'frontier, turn
ing the sod further and further up the western slope, showers came
down from the skies that had never rained before.
In less time than many of the more eastern states occupied in
passing through the period of hard frontier life to reach statehood,
Nebraska had leaped to tho front rank as a lood-prouucing state,
with a population of over one million people and a well equipped
railroad plant of over five thousand miles.
Prosperity, when it comes slow, begets content; but rapid develop
ment and sudden creations of wealth give an opportunity for jeal
ousy, the most subtle of all evil forces to creep into the evil mind.
Whatever is true of Nebraska in this respect, is also true of the
whole country, manifested in each separate state against such en
terprises as are most active and conspicuous. Business jealously is
the twin brother of ambition and is always a sign of upward
evolution.
When the homeless and landless tenant farmer of Ohio and Ill
inois saw the consummation of this three-cornered deal between the
government, the railway and the farmer, whereby this domain was
divided and given away to the two latter for the mutal benefit of all
three, it seemed to him the proper thing to do. But a few years lat
er after he had availed himself of its generous provisions, had be
come a farmer citizen of the new state, when the period of uncer
tainty as to rainfall had passed, when the new state was teeming
with a heavy immigration, the railroad pushing its rapidly growing
plant in all directions, when land had risen in value from nothing to
$15 and $20 per acre, it then occurred to him, by the assistance of
the politician, that the farmer class had been wronged in the dona
tion of even a small portion of the public domain to tho capitalists.
Thousands of farmers who came into the state after tho homestead
land had been largely pre-empted by the earlier settlers purchased
this railroad land on long time, and thereby became debtor tenants
for a term of years to the railroad corporation. Tho relation of debt
or arid creditor or of tenant and landlord always has and always will
be unsatisfactory. It matters not what uncontrollable circum
stances may have brought this condition about, or how just and
equitable the contract upon which the relation exists. So long as
the truth remains that the earth was created for man, so long will
ea?h man feel in some degree, that somehow or in some way ho
ought to have the .right to owu and control the ground beneath the
sky above that particular spot he calls home. This home instinct,
this desire to own one's home, inherent in every breast, while it is
the strength of the nation and one of the vital forces of human
evolution, is, and will continue to be.a source of irritation and jeal
ousy so long as the right to acquire property honestly is unlimited,
and the ability to acquire is unequal. By what right do these
eastern corporations own this western land? was aud still is the one
question in the mind of the Nebraska farmer, and his inability to
see the equity and expediency that the government recognized in
these land grants is, in my opinion, tho source from which has
grown whatever of jealousy exists against the railroads in Nebraska.
If Nebraska farmers have manifested more hostility toward railroads
than the Pennsylvania farmers, it is because it was Nebraska land
and not Pennsylvania land that was given away and owned for a
time by the railroad corporation. It may occur to eastern people
to condemn Nebraska farmers and say that they, of all others, havo
less cause to complain, because they, of all others, profited most by
the Homestead Law and the quick development of tho new state. It
may occur to New England farmers that they of the east have been
most wronged in the giving away of the public domain of which
they were in part owners, to a community of farmers who were pat
ronized and set up in business of the General Government, at tho
expense of other agricultural states. And they may feeled grieved
that this new commonwealth west of the Missouri river with it slow
rate of transporation to the seaboard, has been made a successful
rival of their interests; but whatever criticism may be urged by
eastern people against Nebraska farmers, I want to ask those who
are inclined to judge harshly, if the scene of these land gifts to cor
porations had been in Ohio or Pennsylvania, would not Ohio or
Pennsylvania instead of Nebraska be recognized to-day as typical
anti railroad states?
But the land question has not alone created the anti-railroad sen
timent in Nebraska. There is but one particular industry, the food
industry, in this state. The fanners produce, and tho railroads '
carry to the eastern market. It k not unnatural that a jealousy
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