RAILWAY LEGISLATION 183 



week in January, 1872, without special permission from a rail- 

 road commission to be established. The Assembly passed this 

 measure by vote of 69 to 14. In the Senate, however, the railroad 

 forces rallied, and fearing their inability to prevent the passage 

 of the bill in an open fight, they brought forward the most 

 extreme of the other railroad bills and had it substituted for the 

 committee bill by vote of 20 to 13. This bill, which had been 

 first introduced by Senator Potter, contained a schedule of 

 maximum rates very much lower than the rates then in force 

 on the roads of Wisconsin, and was brought forward with the 

 idea that so radical measure could not possibly become a law 

 and that thus all railroad legislation might be prevented. Two 

 days later this bill passed the Senate by vote of 20 to 7 but was 

 laid aside in the Assembly as had been expected. Shortly 

 after this the joint committee measure again came before the 

 Senate in the shape of an Assembly bill and the same tactics 

 were again pursued; the Potter bill being substituted for the 

 Assembly measure. The responsibility was thus thrown upon 

 the Granger members of the Assembly, and they faced the 

 dilemma of returning to their constituents with no railroad 

 legislation enacted or accepting this radical and unsatisfactory 

 Senate measure. Apparently much to the surprise of the 

 managers of the railroad interests, the Grangers chose the latter 

 alternative and accepted the Potter bill. 1 



1 Assembly Journal, 1874, pp. 23, 36, 103, 194, 367, 559, 611, 631-636, 670, 673; 

 Senate Journal, 1874, pp. 9, 36, 75, 92, 145, 197, 285-297, 384-386, 423, 517, 562. 



An interesting parallel can be drawn between the legislative history of the 

 Potter law of Wisconsin and that of the " tariff of abominations" passed by Congress 

 in 1828. The latter was the result of the attempts of southern leaders to prevent 

 any tariff legislation and in both cases the measures adopted were distasteful to a 

 large majority, even to most of those who voted for them. See Turner, Rise of the 

 New West, ch. xix. 



As early as January 17, 1874, the Industrial Age announced the existence of a 

 political deal between the Republican leaders and the St. Paul railroad officials 

 by the terms of which all railroad bills were to be killed either by direct vote or by 

 loading them with amendments to make them obnoxious or useless. After the 

 law was passed, O. W. Wright, a prominent leader of the Reform party, declared, 

 " The Potter law was unquestionably designed to defeat the ends of railway legis- 

 lation. If its inventors should finally be hoist with their own petard the mourners 

 would be few." Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1874, p. 2. See also ibid., March 1 1, p. 2. 



