POPULISM TO INSURGENCY 43 



of railroad regulation, but some of the gains proved to be only temporary. 

 As public interest in the subject relaxed, the railroads found ways and 

 means to revive their influence. Railroad commissioners, for example, 

 while elected officials, were nominated by railroad-controlled conven- 

 tions, and they usually turned out to be far more effective in defending 

 the wishes of the railroads than in looking after the interests of the pub- 

 lic. Cummins thus found that much of the work done a decade earlier 

 had to be done all over again. 34 



As La Follette was doing in Wisconsin, Cummins began by insisting 

 that the railroads pay a fair share of the state's taxation burden. Railroad 

 assessments, he had maintained during the campaign, should be made 

 "upon the same basis as was applied to farms and city lots." 30 Familiar 

 with every aspect of railroad finance, he was able to dominate the executive 

 council of the state, through which railroad assessments were made. As 

 a result, the total railroad assessment for the year 1902 ran to $4,041,556 

 more than it had in 1901. To facilitate further the correct evaluation of 

 railroad property, a law of 1902 required that the railroads report to the 

 executive council the net income they derived from business originating 

 in Iowa and terminating in other states, or originating in other states and 

 terminating in Iowa, or neither originating nor terminating in Iowa but 

 carried across a part of the state. All these items were to be included in 

 one lump sum. By the year 1906, railroad assessments in Iowa had been 

 increased by $15,000,000. At the same time, similar increases were made 

 in the taxable valuation of express, telephone, and telegraph companies. 36 



Had the railroad commission of Iowa been an appointive body, as in 

 Wisconsin, rather than an elective body, it is probable that the effective- 

 ness of railroad regulation in Iowa would have been far more marked. 

 The elected commissioners were rarely well qualified for their respon- 

 sibilities, and they were generally content to take action only on the com- 

 plaint of citizens rather than on their own initiative. Of some importance 

 was a measure passed by the Iowa legislature, late in the Cummins admin- 

 istration, which authorized the state railroad commission to represent the 



34. Haynes, Third Party Movements, p. 444; Wallaces' Farmer, XXXV (May 27, 

 1910), p. 824. 



35. Haynes, Third Party Movements, p. 453. 



36. Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1902, pp. 723, 725; Brigham, in American 

 Monthly Review of Reviews, XXXIV (September, 1906), p. 292. 



