654 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



Western farmers. The constitution of 1870 declares: "Rail- 

 roads . . . are hereby declared public highways, and the General 

 Assembly shall . . . pass laws establishing reasonable maximum 

 rates. . . . No municipality shall ever become subscriber to the 

 capital stock of any railroad." The attack was followed up in 

 1 87 1 by an act establishing a system of maxima, and providing 

 for a board of commissioners to put to each company forty-one 

 specified questions and as many more as their ingenuity might 

 devise. The railroads, relying on the Dartmouth College case, 

 declared the law unconstitutional and refused to obey it. In the 

 suits that arose. Judge Lawrence, of the state supreme court, 

 pronounced the fixing of maxima by statute unconstitutional with 

 reference to the new state constitution, expressing no opinion on 

 the point claimed by the railroads that this constitution itself 

 was contrary to the clause in the United States Constitution in 

 regard to impairing the obligation of contracts. Coming up for 

 re-election. Judge Lawrence was defeated, to the astonishment of 

 himself and everybody else, by a combination of farmers. Em- 

 boldened by success, the farmers held nominating conventions, 

 and managed to elect several circuit judges, and county tickets 

 in nearly half the counties. A great mass-meeting was held 

 at Springfield during the session of the legislature in that city, 

 to urge upon it the necessity of a new railroad bill. The legis- 

 lature, nothing loath, passed the law of 1873, avoiding the point 

 made by Lawrence against that of 1871 by providing for " reason- 

 able " instead of " maximum " rates, and making it the duty of 

 the commissioners to draw up a schedule of such rates. Provision 

 was made that they be ideally unfit for the task in the following 

 section : " No person shall be appointed who is in any way 

 connected with any railroad company, or who is, directly or 

 indirectly, interested in any stock or bond." It is no wonder 

 that their schedule was as fearfully and wonderfully made as a 

 United States tariff list. The Nation called it " a crazy table of 

 rates drawn up by a mob of ignorant and excited politicians." 

 The system had one advantage, however, over a cast-iron set of 

 maxima fixed by statute. It could be modified or made inopera- 

 tive as the information of the commissioners grew, and this is 



