President Obama opined, "History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry."The expansion of the railroads was accomplished by, primarily, British railroad speculators and a land bribe, giving a section (one square mile) of land along each mile of railroad bed right-of-way. It cost taxpayers nothing, and created hundreds of thousands of jobs and planted the seeds of the great catalog retailers, Sears Roebuck and Co. and J.C. Penney. To suggest that the great railroad expansion was a Federal program is patently silly. He continues to misrepresent, "From the turmoil of the industrial revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age." Again, public education was not championed by the Federal government. Public schools were local...(Read Full Post)