234 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



was buried in forgotten pamphlets and local newspapers, with 

 the result that most later investigators, even including many 

 who desired to be impartial, have accepted the railroad point 

 of view and denounced the Granger acts as violations of economic 1 

 law and injurious to both the railroads and the public. 1 



There have been a few exceptions to this prevailing opinion. 

 As early as 1876, an anonymous writer who signed himself 

 " Wisconsin Granger," in an article in the International Review 

 declared that the Potter law did not 



reduce rates below a non-remunerative standard. It did not destroy rail- 

 road values nor did it reduce them to any material extent nor check railway 

 construction. The actual gross reduction under the law was not over five 

 per cent. . . . The actual test of the law increased the net earnings by 

 reducing expenditures and increasing business, and proved wholly bene- 

 ficial. 



Had it stopped here, there would have been nothing to distin- 

 guish this statement from the numerous Granger assertions 

 of the period, beyond the fact that it appeared in a prominent 

 magazine, but the writer went further and added a footnote in 

 which he presented statistics to show that the railways of Wis- 

 consin during the Granger period compared favorably with the 



1 Probably the most widely known and quoted statement of the effects of the 

 Granger legislation is the following from Hadley, Railroad Transportation, 135. 

 " But a more powerful force than the authority of the courts was working against 

 the Granger system of regulation. The laws of trade could not be violated with 

 impunity. The effects were most sharply felt in Wisconsin. The law reducing 

 railroad rates to the basis which competitive points enjoyed left nothing to pay 

 fixed charges. In the second year of its operation, no Wisconsin road paid a divi- 

 dend; only four paid interest on their bonds. Railroad construction had come to 

 a standstill. Even the facilities on existing roads could not be kept up. Foreign 

 capital refused to invest in Wisconsin; the development of the State was sharply 

 checked; the very men who had most favored the law found themselves heavy 

 losers. These points were plain to every one. They formed the theme of the 

 Governor's message at the beginning of 1876. The very men who passed the law 

 in 1874, hurriedly repealed it after two years' trial. In other states, the laws were 

 either repealed, as in Iowa, or were sparingly and cautiously enforced. By the 

 time the Supreme Court published the Granger decision, the fight had been settled, 

 not by constitutional limitations, but by industrial ones." 



For a large number of other quotations to the same effect, see C. R. Detrick, 

 " The Effects of the Granger Acts," in Journal of Political Economy, xi. 237-247 

 (March, 1903). See also F. L. Holmes, " Development of Transportation Facili- 

 ties," in Wisconsin in Three Centuries, iv. 119, on the effects of the Potter law. 



