Mr. LOAN. It will require but a very few words to explain to the house the merits of this bill. Shortly after the completion of the Hanni bal and StJoseph railroad it became apparent that railroad facilities would be required westwardly. Accordingly the StJoseph and Denver City Railroad Company was organized I cannot under the laws of Kansas, and they at once pro l ceeded to lay out and construct a road from the l town of Elwood, in Kansas, westwardly in the direction of Denver City. thcy proceeded so l far as to grade ten or 12 miles of the road bed and prepare it for the reception of the iron, which was on the ground. They laid down the iron on some 5 miles of the road and completed it for that distance, when the further prosecution of the work was prevented by the outbreak of the rebellion. Since the conclusion of the war this company has been reorganized and has again commenced work on the road, and it is now engaged in prosecuting the work. I hold in my hand the statement of the secretary of the company, made recently, showing the assets of the company to be more than $1, 300,000, on which at least $1,000,000 in money can be realized. But in the mean time, and during the war, Congress provided for the construction of the | Union Pacific Railroad Company, and authorized the construction of 2 branches of that l road from the Missouri river through the State of Kansas. Those branches ran to the south l I of this road, and failed to supply that public want which was meant to be supplied by the construction of this road. If these roads were thought to he works of such national importance as to require that Congress should make them mnnilicent grants of land, give them subl sidies in money and other facilities sufficient l to pay for their construction, it is not unrea sonable to ask Congress to aid, by a small land grant, a competing road that was being constructed by private enter rise to supply the public demand for railroad facilities to the Vest, which could not be met by the subsi dized roads. This is the 1st road west of the Missouri river on which any work was done. It was undertaken in good faith. The company have ‘. eXpended a considerable sum of money on it, i and they now have more than a million dollars | of available means to expend upon it. As a‘ private enterprise, I think the company have such claims as would warrant the House in aiding them by making to them the ordinary grant of lands usually made to other roads in the West. As to the bill itself, I can only say that it contains only the ordinary provisions of land grant bills, such as have been passed heretofore. There can be no objection to it, and 1 hope the House will pass it at once, with o'ut further consumtion of time.