84 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



protection, met with considerable opposition in the convention 

 on the ground that the farmers should concentrate their efforts 

 upon the question of railroad regulation; and the next day a 

 rump composed of about one hundred of the delegates to the 

 convention held a meeting, at which the resolutions in question 

 were reconsidered and laid on the table. 1 Despite this split 

 in the ranks, the work of this convention on the railroad problem 

 and the sustained agitation on the part of the farmers finally 

 bore fruit in the passage by the legislature, May 2, 1873, of a 

 new act for the regulation of railroads, more radical and more 

 effective than the laws of 1871. 



The first attempt of the farmers of Illinois to take part as an 

 organized body in the election of public officers appears to have 

 been a result of the decision of Chief- Justice Lawrence on the 

 constitutionality of the railroad law of 1871. The idea was 

 gaining ground that the farmers must control the courts as well 

 as the legislature if they were to secure any solid results, and the 

 judicial elections of June, 1873, seemed to them a good oppor- 

 tunity for making a beginning in that direction. Particularly 

 was that the case in the fifth district, where the term of the chief- 

 justice himself was about to expire. Lawrence was renominated 

 by means of a petition widely signed by the lawyers of the 

 district, but the farmers, who felt that he was not in sympathy 

 with their interests, held a convention at Princeton in April 

 and nominated Hon. Alfred M. Craig for the position. No 

 pledges .were exacted of the nominee, but he had shown himself 

 favorable to the regulation of corporations by his action in the 

 constitutional convention of 1869-70. The convention which 

 nominated him also adopted a series of resolutions demanding 

 such action by the legislature and the courts as would make 

 effective the railroad provisions of the constitution, declaring 

 an intention to support no one whose sentiments were not 

 in accord with the farmers' in these matters, and recom- 

 mending to the " anti-monopolists " of the state the nomina- 



1 Prairie Farmer, xliv. 114, 123 (April, 1873); Chicago Tribune, 1873, April 2, 

 p. 8, April 4, p. 8; American Annual Cyclopedia, 1873, P 3^7; Periam, The Ground- 

 swell, 280-291. 



