214 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



review of the reasonableness of rates fixed by legislation, a 

 doctrine which has materially limited the rights of the state 

 to regulate railway charges. 1 



In spite of these later developments, the fundamental prin- 

 ciple of the Granger cases still stands, and no one today questions 

 the existence of a right on the part of a state to regulate, to the 

 extent of fixing reasonable maximum charges, railroads and 

 other businesses of a public nature. Upon the establishment 

 of this right has depended the voluminous restrictive railroad 

 legislation of the last forty years. 



THE AGITATION FOR FEDERAL REGULATION 2 



The Granger agitation for government control of railroads 

 had not been under way very long before it became evident 

 to many that the problem was national in its scope and that 

 the evils complained of could not be entirely removed by even 

 the most radical state legislation. It was believed by some that 

 a state might exercise jurisdiction over any railroad traffic 

 taken up or set down within its borders; the early Granger laws 

 were framed with this intention; and the United States Supreme 

 Court upheld this opinion in iSyb. 3 It soon became evident, 

 however, that economic conditions made any effective regulation 

 of interstate traffic by state laws practically impossible, and 

 that any serious attempt to enforce such legislation by several 

 states would lead to great confusion. 4 It was natural, then, 

 that there should be a demand for federal legislation to supple- 

 ment the Granger laws which were being passed in the western 

 states. 



1 Smalley, Railroad Rate Control (American Economic Association, Publications, 

 3d series, vii. no. 2); Adams, " Reasonable Rates," in Journal of Political Econ- 

 omy, xii. 7 9-97; Dunbar, " State Regulation," in Quarterly Journal of Economics, 

 ix. 305-332. 



2 On this general topic see L. H. Haney, A Congressional History of Railways, 

 1850-1887, chs. xix, xxi, xxii. This section was written before a copy of the above 

 came to hand. 



3 See above, pp. 208-213. 



4 See E. J. James, The Agitation for Federal Regulation of Railways (American 

 Economic Association, Publications, ist series, ii. no. 3). 



