RAILWAY LEGISLATION 237 



as to the effects of the Granger agitation in that direction. 1 

 It may be true that the efforts in the West to subject railroads 

 to state control were factors in prolonging the depression and 

 preventing the earlier resumption of railway construction. 

 That, however, has never been proved, and probably is not 

 susceptible of proof. Certainly the claims which would make 

 the Granger movement primarily responsible for the stoppage 

 of construction and the general railroad depression during the 

 years from 1873 to 1876, are greatly exaggerated. 



On the whole, it seems that the immediate economic effects 

 of the Granger agitation for railroad regulation were small: it 

 did secure some temporary reductions in rates and check some of 

 the worst discriminations; it probably reduced railway earnings 

 to some extent, although the decreased rates were in part offset 

 by increased business of which they were a cause; 2 and it may 

 have been a slight contributing factor in checking railway con- 

 struction in the western states. The indirect and political 

 results of the movement, however, were more important: it 

 led to decisions of the United States Supreme Court which 

 established the right of states to control railroads; and it laid 

 the foundation for later legislation. In judging the results 

 of this movement and comparing it with the more recent and 

 more successful attempts at state regulation, allowance must 

 be made for the fact that the problem had just begun to be 

 studied in the seventies. The railroad laws of the present 

 time are, as a rule, drawn up with care by men who have made 

 a study of railroad economics and are administered by trained 

 experts. The measure of success which these laws have attained 

 attests the soundness of the fundamental principles first developed 

 in the Granger acts of the seventies. 



1 " Nothing is more certain than that any cloud which now hangs over American 

 credit in England and Holland is due to the extensive defaults in American railroad 

 bonds, to the dishonest management of American railroad corporations, and to the 

 hostile legislation of Western states, and the wild and furious denunciations of 

 capitalists and money-lenders indulged in by Western politicians during the last 

 two or three years." Nation, xxi. 157 (September 9, 1875). 



2 Wisconsin Railroad Commission, Reports, 1874, p. 34. 



