174 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



the intention of the company to comply with its provisions 

 long enough to demonstrate its absolute injustice. 1 Similar 

 sentiments were expressed in a letter from the general super- 

 intendent of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific railroad, 2 

 and the policy thus outlined appears to have been adopted by 

 the railroads of the state, 3 with two or three exceptions. Of 

 these exceptions the most important was the Chicago, Burling- 

 ton, and Quincy, 4 and in accordance with the provisions of the 

 law steps were taken by the attorney-general to institute a 

 number of suits against this road. This move was checkmated 

 by a temporary injunction which the railroad company pro- 

 cured from the United States circuit court, restraining the 

 prosecution of suits under the law. The question of making 

 this injunction perpetual came up in the May term, 1875, and 

 served as a test case of the validity of the law. Judge Dillon, 

 who heard the case, in refusing to make the injunction permanent, 

 based his decision on the ground that railroads were public 

 highways, and that whatever powers the companies possessed 

 to make rates were subject to the implied condition that they 

 be not oppressively or unreasonably exercised and also subject 

 to future exercise of public regulation by the state. As with 

 the Granger cases in the other states, an appeal was taken to the 

 United States Supreme Court, by which the decision of the cir- 

 cuit court was sustained in the October term, 1876. 5 



While the appeal to the Supreme Court was pending the 

 Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy appears to have conformed 

 its charges in general to the rates in the schedule, and from 



1 Printed in full in Prairie Farmer, xliv. 223 (July 18, 1874). He maintained 

 that the rates for some lines under the law were from thirty to forty per cent lower 

 than the rates in force in 1873. 



2 American Annual Cyclopedia, 1874, p. 417; Tuttle, Iowa, 369. 



3 See references above, p. 172, note 2. 



4 In the annual report to the stockholders, February, 1875, the president of the 

 Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy alluded to the railroad laws of Illinois and Iowa 

 and asserted that " by general acquiescence, their provisions have not to any great 

 extent been observed." Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, Annual Reports, 1874, 

 p. 20. 



6 94 United States, 155; Governor Carpenter, in Legislative Documents, 1876, 

 i. no. i, pp. 10-13; Tuttle, Iowa, 369; Appleton's Cyclopedia, 1875, P- 43; Nation, 

 xx. 402, xxi. i (January 17, July i, 1875). 



