g6 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



seventy-five thousand votes out of a total of nearly three hun- 

 dred and seventy thousand. In the congressional elections 

 the opposition fared somewhat better, regular Republican 

 candidates being elected in but seven of the nineteen districts, 

 while the remainder were classified: eight as Democrats, three 

 as Independent Reformers, and one as an independent Republi- 

 can. In the state legislature also, the Republicans lost their 

 majority through this election, while the Independents secured 

 the balance between the two other parties with three senators 

 and twenty-seven representatives. 1 



In Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota there were enough repre- 

 sentatives of the new party in the legislatures of 1874 to secure 

 the enactment, with some assistance from anti-railroad Republi- 

 cans, of the Granger railroad laws of those states. 2 Although 

 the railroad companies denied the validity of these laws and 

 endeavored to have them set aside by the courts, they entered 

 at the same time upon a campaign to secure their repeal. In 

 the legislative elections of 1874 the railroad forces generally 

 supported the Republican candidates, and the Republicans 

 secured a majority over the combined Democratic and Reform 

 opposition in both houses of all three of the legislatures. 3 In 

 Minnesota the result was the immediate repeal of the Granger 

 railroad law enacted the year before, but in Wisconsin and 

 Iowa, enough of the Republican legislators were " anti-rail- 

 road " to prevent the repeal of the Granger laws in those states 

 at this time. 



1 Election returns can be found in Industrial Age, 1874, November 7, p. 4, 

 November 14, p. 5; American Annual Cyclopedia, 1874, p. 404; Tribune Almanac, 

 1875, PP- 47> 80-82; World Almanac, 1875, P- 2 4> Moses, Illinois, ii. 827. 



2 The history of this legislation and of the struggle over its enforcement is dealt 

 with in chapter v below. 



3 On the campaigns of 1874 in these states, see Chicago Tribune, January- July, 

 1874, passim; Industrial Age, February-November, 1874, passim; American 

 Annual Cyclopedia, 1874, pp. 418, 564, 810; Tuttle, Wisconsin, 649. 



In Wisconsin the officers of the state grange took part in this campaign, first 

 by calling upon all Patrons to vote for candidates who would support the Granger 

 railroad law, and then by circulating a list of questions calculated to be submitted 

 to candidates and to force them to declare their positions on the question of rail- 

 road regulation. Wisconsin State Grange, Proceedings, ii (1874), especially the 

 appendix, pp. 3-12; M. E. Maynard, Patrons of Husbandry in Wisconsin (Ms.), 57. 



