CURBING THE RAILROADS 59 



and in the light of its general laws of incorporation 

 under which the charters were granted. 



These court decisions established principles which 

 even now are of vital concern to business and poli- 

 tics. From that time to this no one has denied the 

 right of States to fix maximum charges for any 

 business which is public in its nature or which has 

 been clothed with a public interest; nor has the in- 

 clusion of the railroad and warehouse businesses in 

 that class been questioned. The opinion, however, 

 that this right of the States is unlimited, and there- 

 fore not subject to judicial review, has been practi- 

 cally reversed. In 1890 the Supreme Court de- 

 clared a Minnesota law invalid because it denied a 

 judicial hearing as to the reasonableness of rates 1 ; 

 and the courts now assume it to be their right and 

 duty to determine whether or not rates fixed by 

 legislation are so low as to amount to a deprivation 

 of property without due process of law. In spite 

 of this later limitation upon the power of the 

 States, the Granger decisions have furnished the 

 legal basis for state regulation of railroads down 

 to the present day. They are the most significant 

 achievements of the anti-monopoly movement of 

 the seventies. 



1 134 United States Reports, 418. 



