496 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
vate property interests, intrenched behind constitutional provis- 
ions. This struggle, begun as we have seen in a conflict with 
federal authority in Brown vs. Maryland and continued for twenty- 
five years in the federal Supreme Court, was now to go on for a 
time in the state courts. 
The vast new interests created by railway development were prac- 
tically all under state laws. The bringing of those interests to sub- 
mit to legislative control inevitably produced conflicts. The ex- 
tension of legislative power to new subjects, where its action was to 
be justified only by analogy to old precedents and not by the direct 
application of them, offered special openings for the exploiting of 
the meaning of general expressions in the state constitutions. 
Then, too, the extension across the country of lines of railroad, 
controlled by great corporations established in other states, strongly 
tended to precipitate conflicts. The people, whose capital was 
thus placed under the control of a distant legislature in another 
state, were jealous and afraid. ‘The lawmakers of that state too 
often were hostile and regarded the owners of the property and cor- 
porate interests as to which they were legislating as aliens, if not 
interlopers. The case of Thorpe vs. Rutland, Etc., Ry. Co. has 
been perhaps the most influential case in settling the line along 
which the power of the state legislatures over railway corporations 
has been asserted and maintained. 
