Grants of lands and exclusive privileges have been made to other corporations, as also to states, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of railroads; but our aim being to combat the policy itself, as involving gross injustice and oppression, and to show its effects upon the public, we have selected the Union Pacific and its branches as the best illustration of the action of congress in making these grants, and the companies owning this road and its branches as a fair sample of the class of professed benefactors of the people. CHAPTER III. THE MONOPOLISTS "HELP THEMSELVES." The Pacific companies are such a deep mine of iniquity, we must sink our shaft somewhat deeper if we would see the true quality of the corruption. In order to fully comprehend the injustice done to the people, it will be necessary to examine the further legislation of congress in their favor. A perusal of the act from which we have quoted will convince the reader that these companies received all that was necessary for the successful completion and operation of their road, and its numerous branches, and to enable them to extort from the government and the people all that the most grasping and avaricious could desire. But, like Oliver Twist, they still asked "for more," and they got it; not in more lands and money, but in being relieved, by act of congress, from the restrictions and duties imposed upon them by their charter. The act of congress chartering the Union Pacific railroad, and its numerous branches, was amended by the act of July 2, 1864, in many particulars, to some of which we have already referred. The fourth section amends the third section of the original charter by increasing the number of sections of land granted per mile to said road, from ten to twenty, and allowing the selection of the lands to be made within twenty miles of the line of the road, instead of ten, as provided in the original charter; and also provides that the secretary of the interior shall withdraw from sale and pre-emption all the land within twenty-five miles of the line of the road, until the company has selected its twenty sections. The original charter limited the withdrawal to fifteen miles. The amendment also qualified the term "mineral lands," contained in the original act, so as to except from the lands reserved by the government all coal and iron lands; thus enabling the company to select coal and iron lands to the full amount of twenty sections per mile, giving to said railroad company, or companies, a monopoly of the coal trade in a country where coal is, and will continue to be, the greatest desideratum; and the same section gives the company the right to use, in fact grants to the company, all the timber found on each side of the road within ten miles thereof. The company can, under its charter, take all the timber from the land it does not select, and then take its twenty sections in coal lands, when they can be found. This it has done,