162 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



victory of the Independent party in the election of 1873 1 placed 

 the Granger element in control of the legislature and ensured 

 the enactment of a radical railway law. 2 The Minnesota rail- 

 way law of 1874, which was modelled on the Illinois law of 1873, 

 established a board of railway commissioners and directed it 

 to prepare schedules of maximum rates which should be prima 

 facie evidence of reasonableness. Unjust discrimination was 

 also defined and prohibited and it was made the duty of the 

 commissioners to enforce the laws by prosecuting suits against 

 offending companies whenever required by the public interest. 3 



Thus far Minnesota had followed the precedents set by Illinois 

 in her attempts to regulate railroads, but the commission soon 

 found that the preparation of schedules to be applied to the 

 new roads of a frontier state like Minnesota was a very different 

 matter from the preparation of schedules which would work in 

 a comparatively well settled community like the state of Illinois. 

 Many of the roads of Minnesota had been constructed in advance 

 of settlement and could not possibly return profit to the owners 

 for a number of years, at any rate which the traffic would bear. 4 

 This fact was recognized by the commissioners in making the 

 schedules and they soon gave up all attempts to consider the 

 question of dividends upon capital invested. They relied, 

 instead, upon the existing rates, with modification when shippers 

 gave evidence of unreasonableness. Effort was made so to draw 

 up the schedules as to do aw r ay with discrimination, and to effect 

 reductions in passenger fares, and in the freight rates on such 

 staples as grain and lumber, which constituted the greater part 



p. i, June 23, p. 3; Minnesota State Grange, Constitution, 1873, p. 15 (proceedings 

 at session of February, 1873). 



1 See above, pp. 89-91. 



2 American Annual Cyclopedia, 512; Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1873, p. 8, 

 January 6, 1874, p. 5; Rural Carolinian, v. 318 (March, 1874). At a session of 

 the state grange at Faribault, December, 1873, the master advocated the appoint- 

 ment of a special committee by the grange to attend the legislature and assist 

 in framing a railroad law. Whether or not this recommendation was followed up 

 by the grange does not appear. Industrial Age, December 27, 1873. 



3 General Laws, 1874, pp. 140-156; American Annual Cyclopedia, 1874, p. 564. 

 See also E. D. Neill, History of Minnesota, 760-763; W. W. Folwell, Minnesota; 

 Chicago Tribune, 1874, January n, p. 8, January 19, p. 5. 



4 See Railroad Commissioner, Reports, 1872, pp. 50-52. 



