RAILWAY LEGISLATION 221 



nections of several members of the committee, 1 but it seems 

 to have made as thorough an investigation of the subject as the 

 time and the means at its disposal would permit. It met at 

 various places in the East and in the Mississippi Valley, and 

 also in the city of Washington; and took testimony from rail- 

 road officials, merchants and manufacturers, state railroad 

 commissioners, and representatives of farmers' organizations. 

 At the session in St. Louis in October, Hon. Willard C. Flagg 

 and Samuel P. Tufts appeared as delegates from the Northwestern 

 Farmers' Convention. Mr. Flagg presented the committee 

 with a copy of the proceedings of the convention and also dis- 

 cussed the organization and objects of the Illinois State Farmers' 

 Association of which he was president. The testimony of Mr. 

 Tufts is especially interesting as representing the attitude 

 of the more radical element among the western farmers. 2 Three 

 propositions were advocated by Mr. Tufts: (i) Congress should 

 enact maximum freight and passenger tariff laws with three 

 cents per mile as the limit for passenger fares; (2) no subsidies 

 should be given to manufacturing or transportation companies, 

 and there should be no class legislation; (3) anyone interested 

 pecuniarily in any commercial throughfare should be made 

 ineligible to Congress. When questioned as to the constitu- 

 tionality of the first of these propositions, in view of the binding 

 force of contracts, he declared that the western people believed 

 that all power rested with the people, and if the courts should 

 declare this unconstitutional, " then do as they did in the Dred 

 Scott decision, wipe the Supreme Court out and get one that 

 would decide it." 



The primary object of the Windom committee was the inves- 

 tigation of the problem of " cheap transportation " ; but it also 

 took cognizance of all other phases of the railroad question 

 which presented themselves, and its report contains the first 

 comprehensive plan for the regulation by the federal govern- 

 ment of interstate traffic on railroads. 3 The key to this report, 



1 Nation, xvii. 153, 250 (September 4, October 16, 1873). 



2 Windom Committee, Report, ii. 673-676. He stated that his views were 

 derived from intercourse with other farmers in their clubs and conventions. 



3 See James, The Agitation for Federal Regulation, 35-37. 



