1 66 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



While it was perhaps unfortunate that the reaction was so 

 thorough and the principle of effective state control so com- 

 pletely given up by Minnesota in 1875 for it was found 

 necessary to reassert the principle by another restrictive act 

 in the next decade still there can be little doubt that the act 

 of 1875 was more suited to the conditions prevailing in the state 

 at that time than were the rigidly restrictive railroad laws of 

 1871 and 1874. 



IOWA 



The foundation for the regulation of railroads in Iowa was 

 laid as far back as 1856, when an act was passed by the legislature 

 turning over lands, donated for the purpose by the national 

 government, to four different railroad companies. 1 Section 14 

 of this act declared that the companies accepting the provisions 

 of the act should at all times be subject to such rules and regu- 

 lations as might be enacted by the general assembly. Similar 

 provisions were inserted in other land grant acts passed during 

 the next ten years, and acts passed in 1866 and 1868 granting 

 lands or legalizing the consolidation of roads contained even 

 more specific provisions reserving to the legislature the right 

 to regulate freight and passenger rates on the roads concerned. 2 

 As early as 1864, there were complaints of discrimination and 

 extortion by the railroad companies and propositions for restric- 

 tive legislation were brought forward in every session of the 

 legislature from that time on. 3 In 1866 the House passed a 

 rate bill, which was not acted upon by the Senate. 4 In 1870, 



1 Iowa, Laws, 1856, extra session, ch. i. This and all other acts of the Iowa 

 legislature relating to railroads, up to and including 1878, can be consulted conven- 

 iently in Iowa Railroad Commission, Reports, i. appendix, parts i, ii (1878). 



2 Laws, 1858, ch. xcix. section 5, 1860, ch. lix. section 3, 1864, ch. cviii. section 20, 

 1866, ch. cxxxiv. section 7, 1868, ch. xiii. section 2, ch. Ivii. section 3, ch. Iviii. section 

 i, ch. xxiv. section 7. See also F. H. Dixon, State Railroad Control, with a History 

 of its Development in Iowa, 21-23; State Senator McNutt, in Cloud, Monopolies and 

 the People, 162-166; Larrabee, The Railroad Question, 323, 330. 



3 Iowa, House Journal, 1864, p. 102; Dixon, State Railroad Control, 23; Larra- 

 bee, Railroad Question, 328-330; McNutt, in Cloud, Monopolies and the People, 

 162. 



4 Iowa, Senate Journal, 1866, pp. 25, 495, 540, 661; House Journal, 1866, pp. 

 159, 184, 235, 252, 290, 356, 438-456, 517, 764. On the railroad question in 



