But the picture is not literally accurate. The railroads crossing this continent did not take all the civilization. The bleaching bones of the emigrants. the lonely unmarked graves. the wheel tires off the old wagons. the skeletons of their cattle and horses. mark the death trail of those brave and hardy men and women who carried civilization into that country long before the echoes of the Rocky Mountains were awakened by the screech of the locomotive. And when these very roads had gotten this grant of almost imperial power from Congress which virtuallygave up to them the government of that country itself. when they gave this imperial heritage of our people for a mess of pottage. long before they had gotten the grant and long after they had gotten it on the statutebook. these brave men and women. with their children and their little all. surrounded by hostile savages. in the midst of a strange and unknown country. plodded their way. and painfully walked. staining their pathway with their blood. marking it with their graves. andjnade fertility and beauty blossom out of the wilderness long before the locomotive of the landgrant railroad had reached the West. The land speculator goes out in his palacecar. but the weary emigrant. who made him possible. dared the restless savage in his warpaint. thirsting for tortures and revenge. looked up to the relentless. blazing sun. with parched lips blistered with alkali dust. starved. toiled. struggled. and suffered that these new pioneers of "civilization " I might follow him. and never dreamed that in 1890 less than 5. 000.000 acres of really arable public land would remain. In 1884 the Government had about 561.000.000 acres of public land. but mostly mountain ranges and barren lands unfit for settlement. The temporary halt called by the late Land Commissioner.
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emigrants emigrant