their steps to the Western Territories, seeking, with their wives and
children, homesteads to be acquired by sturdy industry under the
preemption laws. On their arrival they should not find the timbered
lands and the tracts containing iron ore and coal already surveyed and
claimed by corporate companies, favored by the special legislation of
Congress, and with boundaries fixed even in advance of the public
surveys--a departure from the salutary provision requiring a settler
upon unsurveyed lands to limit the boundaries of his claim to the lines
of the public survey after they shall have been established. He receives
a title only to a legal subdivision, including his residence and
improvements. The survey of the company may not accord with that which
will hereafter be made by the Government, while the patent that issues
will be descriptive of and confer a title to the tract as surveyed by
the company.

I am aware of no precedent for granting such exclusive rights to a
manufacturing company for a nominal consideration. Congress have made
concessions to railway companies of alternate sections within given
limits of the lines of their roads. This policy originated in the belief
that the facilities afforded by reaching the parts of the country remote
from the great centers of population would expedite the settlement and
sale of the public domain. These incidental advantages were secured
without pecuniary loss to the Government, by reason of the enhanced
value of the reserved sections, which are held at the double minimum.
Mining and manufacturing companies, however, have always been
distinguished from public-improvement corporations. The former are, in
law and in fact, only private associations for trade and business on
individual account and for personal benefit. Admitting the proposition
that railroad grants can stand on sound principle, it is plain that such
can not be the case with concessions to companies like that contemplated
by this measure. In view of the strong temptation to monopolize the
public lands, with the pernicious results, it would seem at least of
doubtful expediency to lift corporations above all competition with
actual settlers by authorizing them to become purchasers of public lands
in the Territories for any purpose, and particularly when clothed with
the special benefits of this bill. For myself, I am convinced that the
privileges of ordinary preemptors ought not to be extended to
incorporated compan