The amount taken from the people who settle in and improve the state and develop its resources, which they must pay to the government and these railroad companies before getting title to their lands, is about $25,000,000 more than would have been demanded of them but for these land grants. What have they received in return? The companies in Iowa receiving grants of land have not extended their lines across the state more rapidly than companies receiving no grants. In fact, roads built entirely with private means have been constructed more rapidly than these land grant roads. The companies receiving the grants did not keep pace with the settlement of the country; the people, as pioneers, were always in advance of the roads. It was only when the population of the country was sufficient to afford a paying business that the roads were extended. The excuse paraded by congress for making these grants was that the companies would advance their roads so as to draw after them an agricultural population. This has not been done. On the contrary, the lands outside of the boundaries of the railroad grants were the first settled, and the most rapidly developed. Has the result been different in Kansas? The number of miles of railroad in this state in 1870 was about seventeen hundred, of which nearly one thousand received grants of land, and the Kansas Pacific company $6,303,000 in subsidy bonds. Companies constructing these roads received land grants to the amount of 5,420,000 acres. At $1.25 per acre the grants amount to $6,775,000. This sum is charged upon the reserved sections as in Iowa, and must be paid by the people of Kansas. Add to this the $6,303,000 subsidy bonds, and the Kansas railroads have cost the people of that state and the public treasury $13,000,000, outside of the immense local aid voted to them by the different cities, towns and counties. The population of this state in 1860 was 107,206. In 1870 it was 362,872. Saying nothing about the increased prices to be paid to the railroad companies for the lands granted to them, or the large amount of subsidy bonds, and leaving out the immense amounts of local aid afforded to the different railroads, and the sum to be charged to the railroads for the extra price of the reserved sections is about $20.00 per head for the entire population. Looking at the facts as they are developed we conclude that the people have not been benefited by these grants of lands, that railroad companies are the only parties benefited, that the people are not richer because of these grants, but, on the contrary, they would have made money by giving to the railroad companies the actual cost of the roads.