446 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



ten per cent, on stock which the present owners never 

 paid anything for, nor on stock that has been issued as 

 a dividend. Many of the roads have been partially 

 built with money subscribed by the farmers themselves, 

 or by the towns and counties through which they ex- 

 tend, and the people are unwilling that men who have 

 since got possession of these roads, often by the pay- 

 ment of comparatively little money, shall make large 

 dividends until they have low rates. Above all, they 

 are unwilling that the price of their crops shall be fixed 

 by a ring of railroad men. 



" The remedy proposed is different in almost every 

 State. Some propose a pro rata law; some desire a 

 fixed rate of maximum tariffs for freight and passengers ; 

 some desire that the question shall be regulated by the 

 State, and some by the United States. In some States 

 the present controversy is over the power of the Legis- 

 latures to control the railroads ; in others that power is 

 conceded either in the charters of the companies or the 

 constitutions of the States, and then the question is, how 

 shall the power be exercised? Some hold that the 

 right of eminent domain exercised by a State in con- 

 demning private property for the use of railroads is a 

 right pertaining only to the State in its sovereign 

 capacity, and one of which it cannot in any way divest 

 itself. Railroad property, they say, is no more sacred 

 or exempt from the exercise of this right, when the 

 interests of the people demand it, than any other. 

 Should a railroad company now existing, therefore, 

 become so oppressive in its charges as to make it for 

 the public interest that a new company should be 

 formed under greater restrictions, the State has the 

 power to charter a new company to operate a road 



