Decker, Railroads, Lands, and Politics, 70-72.
Mills noted the government's reluctance to grant patents in the early 1880s without giving the reasons. The Northern Pacific worked feverishly to stop Congress from rescinding its grant.
The Union Pacific admitted it sold lands without survey to avoid taxes.
Decker, Railroads, Lands, and Politics, 73-86, 97, 113.
W.H. Mills to Stanford, June 20, 1887, PRC, 5:2563.
On the other hand, the Southern Pacific was interested in protecting the Texas & Pacific land grant, which it claimed to have inherited.
CPH to Crocker, Dec. 22, 1881, Jan. 19, 1882, v. 29, CPH Papers, ser. 2, r. 6.
"Thirty-Second Parallel Pacific Railroad, Remarks of CPH . . .Before the Committee on Public Lands of the U.S. Senate, Feb. 2, 1884, on House Bill 3933" (New York, John C. Rankin, Jr. Printer, 1884).
Pacific Railroads, April 25, 1876, 44th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rept. 440.
"Debate in the United States Senate on the Indebtedness of the Pacific Railroads to the United States Government," 44th Cong., 2d Sess., 1876-77 (Washington, 1877), copy in Pacific Railroad in Congress, Sinking Fund, Stanford Univ. Library, quote, 173.
Octopus Speaks, 387-88.