RAILWAY LEGISLATION 19 1 



address was accompanied by a list of thirteen questions relating 

 to the position of candidates for the legislature on various aspects 

 of the railroad problem, and masters of local granges were advised 

 to submit this list to all candidates. Considerable use appears 

 to have been made of this questionnaire, the answers received 

 being made public, and it was doubtless disconcerting to such 

 candidates as wished to avoid the issue, for the fact of a failure 

 to reply to the questions was also to be announced and would 

 undoubtedly make an unfavorable impression. 



The election which ensued was not a decided victory for either 

 the advocates or opponents of state control. The struggle was 

 at once transferred to the legislature. Neither the railroad 

 men, who wanted a complete repeal of the Potter law, nor the 

 radical Granger element, which desired to retain the Potter 

 rates and to strengthen the provision for enforcement, were 

 strong enough to put through their bills. The outcome was the 

 adoption of two compromise measures. 1 The first of these 

 contained a reclassification of the roads and was designed to 

 relieve some of the weaker roads which had been placed in class 

 B by the Potter law. 2 The other, which was known as the 

 Quimby amendment, was a revision, generally upward, of the 

 rates in the seven special classes established by the Potter law, 

 especially as applied to short distances. 3 



There seems to have been little difficulty over the enforce- 

 ment of the railroad laws during 1875^ but the companies 

 continued the campaign for their repeal along the same lines 

 as those followed in 1874. In this they had the assistance of 



1 Senate Journal, 1875, pp. 376, 387, 416, 431, 443, 476, 479; Assembly Journal, 

 1875, pp. 170, 457, 513, 514-518, 573, 585, 614; Industrial Age, 1875, March 27, 

 p. 4, April 17, p. 4, May i, p. 4, June 5, p. 2; Appleton's Cyclopedia, 1875, p. 60; 

 Leland, in Nation, xx. 189 (March 18, 1875) and reply, " Good and Bad Grangers " 

 by " A Granger " in ibid. 241 (April 8, 1875); A. Keep and A. Mitchell, Memorial 

 of the Chicago and Northwestern and Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway 

 Companies to the Senate and Assembly of the State of Wisconsin (1875); Flower, 

 Carpenter, 291; Tuttle, Wisconsin, 653. 



2 Laws, 1875, cn> ccxxxiv; Railroad Commission, Reports, 1875, appendix A, 

 25-30. 



3 Laws, 1875, cn - cx "i; Railroad Commission, Reports, 1875, appendix A, 14. 



4 Ibid. 28. 



