23 2 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



inconsiderable, but that they did put a check upon unjust 

 discriminations while they remained in force. 



Indirectly, however, the Granger laws and the agitation which 

 produced them, seem to have had a considerable effect upon 

 rates, particularly during the years immediately following the 

 repeal of the laws. The desire to prevent a recurrence of the 

 agitation was undoubtedly one factor in bringing about the 

 rapid reductions of railroad rates during the later seventies, 

 and certainly the general attitude of railroad officials toward 

 the public was then very different from what it had been at the 

 beginning of the Granger movement. 1 



At the time of the Granger agitation, it was universally 

 asserted by the railroad officials and their supporters that the 

 enforcement of the laws would so curtail the revenues of the 

 companies as practically to ruin them and would prevent all 

 further railway construction in the states affected. In the 

 cases where the laws were enforced it was declared that the pre- 

 dictions had been realized. These assertions are to be found 

 over and over again in the annual reports of the railroad com- 

 panies, 2 in memorials to the legislatures, 3 in messages of anti- 

 Granger governors, 4 and in newspapers and periodicals; 5 but 



1 Illinois Railroad Commission, Reports, 1876, pp. 15, 22; Governor's message 

 (Illinois), Senate Journal, 1877, p. 19 or House Journal, 1877, p. 30. 



2 For example see Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, i$th Annual 

 Report (1874), or extracts from same in Yesterday and Today, a History of the Chicago 

 and Northwestern Railway Company, 59-61. 



3 Illinois, Reports to the General Assembly, 1873, iv. 971. See above, p. 154. 



4 Governor Gear of Iowa, in his biennial message to the legislature, January, 

 1880, declared: " That the law of the Fifteenth General Assembly had a tendency 

 to restrict capital from seeking investment in railway construction in the state is 

 evidenced by the fact that during the four years it was in operation only 310 miles 

 of railway were constnicted, and since the enactment of the present law nearly 

 700 miles have been constructed; over ninety per cent, of the cost of which has been 

 defrayed by the investment of foreign capital." Iowa, Legislative Documents, 

 1880, i. no. i, p. 28. 



This is an excellent example of the way in which the Granger legislation was 

 made responsible for the results of the panic of 1873. See also message of Governor 

 Ludington of Wisconsin in Governor's Message and Accompanying Documents, 1876, 

 i. 9-12. 



6 The Nation was especially diligent in this connection. See especially xvi. 

 309, 384, 397, xvii. 49, 156, 218, xviii. 55, 293, xix. 17, 199-201, xx. 53, 201, xxi. 



