RAILWAY LEGISLATION 235 



railroads of other states in extensions and in payment of interest 

 on indebtedness. 1 



In 1891, appeared a book by A. B. Stickney, president of the 

 Chicago and Great Western railroad, in which the fairness of the 

 Granger laws was upheld and the position taken that the evils 

 which had been laid at their door were really results of competi- 

 tion and of bad management on the part of railway officials. 2 

 Two years later, ex-Governor Larrabee of Iowa, who had played 

 a part in the Granger and later railroad legislation in that state, 

 published The Railroad Question, in which he also asserted that 

 the Granger acts were fair and reasonable, and declared that if 

 the earnings or construction of railroads had been affected at 

 all, " it was due solely to a conspiracy on the part of the rail- 

 road managers to misrepresent and pervert the legislation in 

 these states." 3 



Finally, in March, 1903, an article by Charles R. Detrick 

 appeared in the Journal of Political Economy in which the whole 

 subject of the effects of the Granger acts upon the railroads is 

 examined in the light of statistics. 4 The investigation of the 

 subject is rendered difficult by the fact that the Granger laws 

 were in force during the period of financial depression following 

 the panic of 1873 and it is necessary to determine to what extent 

 each of these factors was the cause of the prevailing conditions 

 among railroads. The problem is handled by Mr. Detrick by 

 comparing statistics of railway construction and earnings in the 

 Granger states and in various other groups of states. As a 

 result of this study, the following proposition can be considered 

 as definitely established: the percentages of increase in railroad 

 mileage and in average net earnings of railway companies during 



1 " The Grange and the Potter Law," in International Review, iii. 665-673 

 (October, 1876). See especially pp. 665-667. 



2 Stickney, Railway Problem. 



8 Larrabee, Railroad Question, 246. 



4 C. R. Detrick, " The Effects of the Granger Acts," in Journal of Political 

 Economy, xi. 237-256 (March, 1903). The statistics in this article have been used 

 by Senator R. M. La Follette in discussions of the Granger movement in several 

 of his pamphlets, magazine articles, and speeches. For a reply to one of these by 

 the general solicitor of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway Company, 

 see Burton Hanson, Unfair Railway Agitation. 



