RAILWAY LEGISLATION 143 



Two suits were instituted in 1871 and 1872 to test the validity 

 of the warehouse law of 1871. The first of these was brought 

 by the commission against Munn and Scott, a warehouse firm 

 of Chicago, and was in the nature of criminal proceedings for 

 failure to take out licenses required by the law. Proceedings 

 were begun in this case in September, 1871, but the Chicago 

 fire and other causes of delay prevented a final hearing until 

 July, 1872. A verdict of guilty was then returned against the 

 defendant; but the case was appealed to the supreme court of 

 the state, which, after numerous delays, affirmed the judgment 

 of the lower court in September, 1873. The case was then 

 carried to the United States Supreme Court as Munn v. Illinois 

 and a final decision rendered in 1876 in favor of the state. This 

 was the first of the celebrated " Granger cases " to be decided 

 by that body. 1 The other suit under the warehouse law was 

 brought in January, 1872, for charging more than the legal 

 rate for storage as fixed by the law, but the circuit court decided 

 in July, 1872, that there was no public remedy, the law having 

 fixed no penalty. 2 



THE RAILROAD LAW or 1873 



In the interval of two years between the passage of the first 

 " Granger legislation " in Illinois and the session of the twenty- 

 eighth general assembly, a new political and economic force had 

 come to the front in the state, the force of an organized agri- 

 cultural class. 3 While it is probably true that the Producers ' 

 Convention of 1870 exerted an influence on the constitutional 

 convention of that year, and that the Legislative Farmers' 



1 The arguments before the state supreme court and decision are in Railroad 

 Commission, Reports, 1874, pp. 46-102. The decision and dissenting opinions 

 are also in 69 Illinois, 80; and in Chicago Tribune, February 4, 1874, p. 2. For the 

 decision of the United States Supreme Court and dissenting opinions, see 94 United 

 States Reports, 113; Illinois Railroad Commission, Reports, 1877, pp. 5-20. See 

 also below, pp. 206-214. 



2 Railroad Commission, Reports, 1873, p. 12. Before the decision of Munn v. 

 Illinois by the United States Supreme Court, the warehousemen had regulated 

 their charges to conform to the rates fixed by law. These rates were lowered by 

 an act of 1877, and there appears to have been no difficulty over enforcement 

 thereafter. Ibid., 1874, p. 24, 1877, p. xv; Public Laws, 1877, p. 169. 



3 See above, pp. 51,54, 75- 



