RAILWAY LEGISLATION 211 



Burlington, and Quincy Railway Company v. Iowa were there- 

 fore applied and the decrees of the lower court affirmed. 



In another Wisconsin case Chicago, Milwaukee, and 

 St. Paul Railway Company v. Ackley the question involved 

 was the right of the company to recover more than the maximum 

 fixed by the law, for transportation performed, by showing that 

 the charge was no more than reasonable compensation. In 

 accordance with the previous decisions the court determined 

 that " the limit of recovery is that prescribed by the statute." 

 The Minnesota cases Winona and St. Peter Railway Company 

 v. Blake and Southern Minnesota Railway Company v. Cole- 

 man presented no new points, there being nothing in the 

 charters " limiting the power of the State to regulate the rates 

 of charge " ; and the case of Stone v. Wisconsin merely decided 

 that a railroad charter granted by the territory, but not accepted 

 nor the company organized until after the admission of the 

 state, was subject to the reserved right of alteration contained 

 in the state constitution. 



To all of these cases Justices Field and Strong dissented and 

 in connection with the last a dissenting opinion was presented 

 covering the whole series. In Munn v. Illinois, as has been seen, 

 these justices dissented on the ground that the business in ques- 

 tion did not depend upon any special grant or privilege. This, 

 of course, would not apply to the railroad cases, so the justices 

 here based their dissent on the contractual character of the 

 charters, holding that implied rights and privileges were as 

 inviolable as those expressed. It was further asserted that the 

 reserved power to alter all laws creating corporations " should 

 not, in common honesty, be so used as to destroy or essentially 

 impair the value of mortgages and other obligations executed 

 under express authority of the state." 



Taking the decisions of these Granger cases as a whole, the 

 following propositions are established : 



(i) A state may, under the police power, regulate, to the 

 extent of fixing maximum charges, any business which is pub- 

 lic in its nature or which has been " clothed with a public 

 interest." 



