CHAPTER VI 



GRANGER RAILWAY LEGISLATION (CONTINUED) 



THE GRANGER CASES AND THE SUPREME COURT 



PERHAPS the most important results of the Granger railroad 

 legislation are to be found in the series of decisions of the United 

 States Supreme Court in what have always been known as the 

 Granger cases. These cases were the first to bring before this 

 high judicial tribunal the question of the right of a state govern- 

 ment to fix maximum rates for railroad freights and fares and 

 warehouse charges, and though parts of these decisions have 

 been reversed by later decisions, the fundamental principle of 

 the right of a state to regulate a business which is public in its 

 nature, a principle which was established by these cases, has 

 been maintained and constantly applied ever since. No true 

 conception of the present status of the law as to railway regula- 

 tion can be obtained without an understanding of the principles 

 involved in the Granger cases. 



In the October term of the Supreme Court of the United 

 States, 1876, decisions were handed down together in the cases 

 of Munn v. Illinois; Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad 

 Company v. Iowa; Peik v. Chicago and Northwestern Railroad 

 Company and Lawrence v. Same; Chicago, Milwaukee, and 

 St. Paul Railroad Company v. Ackley; Winona and St. Peter 

 Railroad Company v. Blake; Southern Minnesota Railroad 

 Company v. Coleman; and Stone v. Wisconsin. 1 In a dissent- 

 ing opinion on the last of these cases Justice Field spoke of them 

 as the " Granger cases," presumably because the legislation of 

 Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota which gave rise to 

 them had been generally spoken of as the Granger laws. With 



1 94 United States Reports, 113 et seq.; Illinois Railroad Commission, Reports, 



1877, PP. 5-27- 



206 



