140 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



resign. The vote on the adoption of this resolution, which 

 appears to be a test of the strength of the opposition to railway 

 regulation in the Senate, was 13 ayes and 19 noes. 1 



Four suits were brought in the courts of Illinois, involving 

 parts of the railroad and warehouse legislation of 1871, during 

 the interval between the enactment of that legislation and the 

 meeting of the next general assembly in January, 1873. The 

 first of these was brought by S. H. Moore of Kankakee against 

 the Illinois Central railroad to recover the five hundred dollar 

 penalty for an overcharge of the maximum passenger fare allowed 

 by the law. This suit was started in a justice's court as early 

 as August, 1871, and then carried to the circuit court of Kankakee 

 County. The case came to trial in September, 1872, on an 

 admitted statement of fact, and in December, Judge Wood 

 rendered a decision for the defendant on the grounds that its 

 charter was a contract, and that the legislature, having no 

 judicial power and no means of ascertaining what is reasonable, 

 could not, at any time, fix the fare. An appeal was immediately 

 taken to the supreme court where it came up in the September 

 term, 1873. The judgment of the lower court was affirmed 

 but the supreme court based its decision upon the grounds that 

 the alleged overcharge had occurred in July, 1872, some time 

 before the railroads of the state had been classified by the com- 

 mission, and that no evidence had been presented that the 

 Illinois Central belonged at that time in class B, to which it 

 was later assigned. The court further declared that the con- 

 stitutionality of the act of 1871 was not involved in this decision 

 and so declined to express any opinion on that question. 2 



1 Ibid. 699, 707, 721, 744, 766. The only legislation relative to railroads enacted 

 at this session was a general incorporation law made necessary by a provision of 

 the constitution of 1870 which forbade the creation of corporations by special laws. 



2 68 Illinois Reports, 385. The railroad commission had aided Mr. Moore in 

 the prosecution of this suit and two of the commissioners presented an account 

 and discussion of the case as an " Additional Report " incorporated in the annual 

 report of the board f or 1 8 7 2 . This was, of course, before the decision of the supreme 

 court on the appeal. One of the commissioners, Mr. R. P. Morgan, took exception 

 to this action, and declared the account given to be incomplete and imperfect. It 

 is true that the fact that the alleged offense had been committed and the action 

 brought before the classification of the roads by the commission is not brought out 



