Dictionary.net

of Subsidy

In early use the word denoted a special tax, then it signified the payment made to an ally for assisting in war. It is now the term applied to pecuniary aid rendered by the State to industrial enterprises of individuals. The granting of monopoly rights was the earliest form of subsidies in the United States. National aid has been in a number of instances tendered to railroad corporations, chiefly in land grants, many millions of acres being granted to the Northern Pacific,, the Union Pacific, the Illinois Central, the mobile and Ohio and the Kansas Pacific Railroads. In the case of the of the Union Pacific, in addition to a land grant of 33,000,000 acres, the United States pledged itself to # 25,000 per mile, half the cost. Subsidies have been granted for the encouragement of the United States steam marine at various times since 1850, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company being the chief of these contractors.