Koch brothers' wealth began in government grants | eats shoots 'n ...

Yep, government land grants to railroads, as Yasha Levine reports for the Texas Observer in a much-needed look at the origins of the family wealth and ideology in the person of their grandfather, Harry Koch:

County records show Harry provided advertising services and worked directly for the Fort Worth and Denver for nearly 20 years, sometimes receiving payment in the form of land transferred directly from the legendary railroad builder Grenville M. Dodge, who helped lay the Union Pacific and more than a dozen other lines across the country.

All that land doled out to the ur-Koch came from the government, which doled it out to railroads to encouraged building lines across the country, the spawn of Manifest Destiny wed to corporatism.

And all that land, of course, was seized [inevitably in violation of earlier treaties] from Native Americans, some of it by Dodge in his earlier incarnation as an "Indian-fighting"  U.S. Army general.

So let's see if we get this right. The Kochs owe their ancestral wealth to government entitlements?

Hmmmm.

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