56 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



repealed before they had been given a fair trial. 

 The commissions remained in existence, however, 

 although with merely advisory functions; and they 

 sometimes did good service in the arbitration of dis- 

 putes between shippers and railroads. Interest in 

 the railroad problem died down for the time, but 

 every one of the Granger States subsequently enact- 

 ed for the regulation of railroad rates statutes which, 

 although more scientific than the laws of the seven- 

 ties, are the same in principle. The Granger laws 

 thus paved the way not only for future and more en- 

 during legislation in these States but also for similar 

 legislation in most of the other States of the Union 

 and even for the national regulation of railroads 

 through the Interstate Commerce Commission. 



The Supreme Court of the United States was the 

 theater for the final stage of this conflict between 

 the railroads and the farmers. In October, 1876, 

 decisions were handed down together in eight cases 

 which had been appealed from federal circuit and 

 state courts in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Min- 

 nesota, and which involved the validity of the 

 Granger laws. The fundamental issue was the 

 same in all these cases the right of a State to 

 regulate a business that is public in nature though 

 privately owned and managed. 



