eration, land would increase in value,
the railroad could sell to settlers at an enhanced price and with one
stroke recover the cost of building and add new settlers to furnish
more business.

In its theory and its broad outline the land-grant policy is not hard
to defend. The difficulties came with execution. We know that in actual
operation the policy meant reckless speculation and dishonest finance.
We know that no distinction in favor of the public was made between
ordinary farm lands, forest lands, mineral lands, and power sites. We
know that the beneficiaries of land grants were permitted to exchange
ordinary lands for lands of exceptional value without any adequate
_quid pro quo_; and we know that there were no adequate safeguards
against theft.

Wholesale alienation of public property was intended to secure
railroads and settlers, but the government did not see to it that the
result was actually achieved. Speculation impeded the railways in doing
their part of the task, while individuals enriched themselves from the
proceeds of grants or withheld the grants from settlement to become the
basis of future speculative enterprises. All this seems to show that in
execution at least our policy from a national standpoint was
short-sighted. Careful analysis and a more painstaking effort to look
ahead might have brought more happy results.

And how about the railroads from the standpoint of private enterprise?
A railway financier once described a western railway as "a right of way
and a streak of rust." The phrase was applicable to many railways.
Deterioration and lack of repairs were, of course, responsible for part
of the condition it suggests, but much of the fault went back to
original construction. It was the wonder and the reproach of European
engineers that their so-called reputable American colleagues would risk
professional standing on such temporary and flimsy structures as the
original American lines. Poor road bed; poor construction; temporary
wooden trestles across dangerous spans--everything the opposite of what
sound engineering science seemed to demand. Why did not the owners of
the roads exercise business foresight to provide for reasonably solid
construction?

What seems like an obvious and easy answer to all these questions is
that both the Government and the road were controlled in many cases, as
the people of California well know, by the same men, and these men were
privately interested. As publi