If James J. Hill was truly the business genius history paints him as, then leaving that money on the table wasn’t a moral victory. It was strategic malpractice. Imagine a "Hill Plus": a version of him who possessed the same obsession with low gradients and high-quality steel, intended to hold the asset for decades, but also took the government checks for every mile laid. That version of the company would have had the same operational efficiency as the Great Northern, but with a balance sheet fortified by federal cash. He would have crushed his "puritan twin" into the dust.

The failure of the subsidized lines wasn't that they received money; it was that they allowed the subsidy to become their primary business model. It is entirely possible to accept a per-mile grant and still build a straight, durable line. The grant simply creates an incentive to build winding trash - it doesn't compel it. A disciplined operator recognizes that the subsidy is merely cheap capital, a tool to lower the cost basis of a long-term asset.

By arguing that the subsidy caused the failure, we are essentially arguing that these businessmen lacked the agency to resist a bad incentive. It implies that free money is a kind of mind control that inevitably forces you to build a bridge that collapses in five years. It doesn't. It just exposes who is building a railroad and who is running a grift. Hill succeeded because he wanted to run a railroad, but he made his life infinitely harder than it needed to be by refusing the capital that could have made his efficiency even deadlier.