February 1953 page 11

[photo of railroad tracks, spans both columns]
NOT AN INCH OF P & N OR D & S RIGHT-OF-WAY WAS A GOVERNMENT GIFT.
[headline spans both columns]
The Land Grant Myth . . . . . it still rides the rails

WHEN railroad men are so bold as
to complain about public sub-
sidies enjoyed by competing forms
of transportation they are often squelched
with a rebuttal that goes something
like this, "What about the land grants
. . . the railroads were subsidized too."

Unless the railroader is well inform-
ed he is likely to begin his answer
with a stammering, "Yes, but . . . ",
thus indicating that he thinks that rail-
roads were subsidized.

Nothing could be so far from the
truth! The ever popular "land grant"
myth has been traced to the discursive,
often inaccurate treatment accorded
the subject by history text books. So
many of these text books, either
through omission or error, have so dis-
torted the value of railroad land grants
that the average person is left with the
impression that all railroads reaped
enormous gains from fabulous land
gifts.

Robert S. Henry, vice president in
charge of public relations for the As-
sociation of American Railroads, once
made an exhaustive study of 37 history

12 SEMAPHORE