Great Fortunes from Railroads

ress, 1824-25, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 25.] Other legislatures petitioned similarly. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that United States officials and committees of Congress were continually unearthing great frauds, no real change for the benefit of the poor settler was made.

GREAT EXTENT OF THE LAND FRAUDS.

The land frauds were great and incessant. In a long report, the United States Senate Committee on Public Lands, reporting on June 20, 1834, declared that the evidence it had taken established the fact that in Ohio and elsewhere, combinations of capitalist speculators, at the public sales of lands, had united for the purpose of driving other purchasers out of the market and in deterring poor men from bidding. The committee detailed how these companies and individuals had fraudulently bought large tracts of land at $1.25 an acre, and sold the land later at exorbitant prices. It showed how, in order to accomplish these frauds, they had bought up United States Land Office Registers and Receivers. [Footno