RAILWAY LEGISLATION 12J 



road law and asserting the power of the state to control corpora- 

 tions of its own creation. One correspondent of the Prairie 

 Farmer declared in May, 1869, that the legislature should have 

 gone further and fixed the " just and reasonable rates " instead 

 of allowing the corporations to determine what were such; 

 another in August declared the law as passed to be " clumsy 

 and effete " and suggested that bribery was used to prevent 

 the passage of more effective measures. 1 Although frustrated 

 this time, the advocates of state control of railroads did not give 

 up the struggle, and an opportunity to inaugurate a flank move- 

 ment on the enemy was presented by the fact that a convention 

 was to meet in December, 1869, to revise the state constitution. 

 The contest was at once transferred from the legislative to the 

 constitutional field. From the attitude on the subject of a 

 large majority in the convention, and the results as embodied 

 in the new constitution, it is apparent that the farmers and others 

 desirous of restrictive legislation kept that issue in mind in the 

 elections of delegates to the convention. 



Various influences were also brought to bear upon the con- 

 vention in favor of radical provisions for railway regulation. 

 As might be expected, a considerable number of petitions relating 

 to the subject were received, 2 and local pressure was undoubtedly 

 brought to bear upon the individual members, especially during 

 a recess of the convention. 3 But even more important than these 

 was the movement for protective and cooperative organization 

 which was beginning to take a hold among the farmers of the 

 state. Numerous local meetings for the consideration of prob- 

 lems of transportation and rural organization were held in i869, 4 

 and on March 26, 1870, Mr. Henry C. Wheeler, a farmer of 

 Du Page County, Illinois, issued in the Prairie Farmer a call 

 for a " Producers' Convention." This call contained a somewhat 

 intemperate discussion of the transportation question, the gist 

 of which was that railroad charges had not been reduced to 



1 Prairie Farmer, xl. 154, 273 (May 15, August 28, 1869). 



2 Illinois Constitutional Convention, 1870, Debates, i. 289, 344, 365, 451, 510, 



589. 



3 Ibid. ii. 1710. 4 J. Periam, The Groundswell, 224. 



