STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 81 



liberty. There was a time when the paramount problem in most com- 

 munities was how to get a railway. After the railway came, the problem 

 of how to make it subservient to the welfare of the community was 

 scarcely less pressing. For it soon appeared that the railway by the ad- 

 justment of rates could decree where commodities should be produced, 

 build up or tear down a community, and make or mar the fortunes of 

 individuals. Besides, railway managers exercised an undue influence over 

 the press, the actions of legislatures, executive officers and even the 

 courts. Among the various kinds of railway favoritism, none was so 

 invidious as the railway pass, and certainly none exerted a more subtle 

 and corrupting influence. It gradually dawned upon the public mind 

 that here was an industry which competition, upon which people had 

 been accustomed to rely, was ineffective to control. Competition made 

 for instability as well as for unjust discriminations in rates, promoted 

 the needless construction of roads, and was therefore often ruinous alike 

 to the investor and the shipper, and sometimes it permitted monopoly 

 by refusing to work at all. To permit railway managers to make every 

 rate a matter of special bargain and sale according to the supposed neces- 

 sities of competition was intolerable. To leave the problem at the pleas- 

 ure of the railway interests to solve by pools, rate agreements and 

 other forms of combination, including consolidation, was to sacrifice 

 the public interest to the greed of the few. Apparently, nothing less 

 than the coercive power of the state was equal to the situation. 



II 



Probably the farmers of certain western states were the first to feel 

 the full power of railway oppression. Long distance from market made 

 them in a peculiar way dependent upon the railway. Since they were 

 for the most part pioneers, they were ill prepared to stand the pecuniary 

 losses to which they were subjected, and were quick to resent what 

 seemed to them a manifest injustice. Besides, the fact that few of the 

 railway bond and stockholders resided in the west made them appear as 

 aliens, and contributed to the zeal with which the " embattled farmers " 

 attacked the railway problem. These conditions blossomed into the 

 granger movement which gained control of the legislatures of a number 

 of states, and either directly by legislative enactment or indirectly 

 through railway commissions endeavored to curb the railway power. 

 The problem presented was almost wholly new, and the members of the 

 different legislative bodies were without experience in meeting it. 

 Naturally, not a little crude and ill-advised legislation resulted, but the? 

 issue between the rights of property, on the one hand, and fair play, on 

 the other, was nevertheless fairly and squarely joined. 



The railway interests did not submit to public control without a 

 bitter contest. In defense, the attorneys of the railways banked much 



VOL. TiXXXVI. — 6. 



