"Following this came restrictive legislation, which, in some instances, was so unreasonable as to make any railway management impossible. Some of the Granger legislation, and especially that of Iowa, was of this character, as were also some of the earlier efforts to secure Congressional legislation."

It was left to Mr. Bonham to discover that legislation ever made railroad management impossible in Iowa. The General Assembly of Iowa passed at two different times railroad laws that were greatly obnoxious to railroad managers. In 1874 it passed a maximum tariff act which, at the urgent solicitation of the railroad forces, was repealed four years later; and in 1888 it passed an act containing the principles of the Interstate Commerce Act and in addition authorizing the Board of Railroad Commissioners to fix prima facie rates. Strange as it may seem to Mr. Bonham and other people inclined to believe without investigation the statements of railroad men, the earnings of the Iowa roads greatly increased immediately after the enactment of the so-called Granger laws in 1874, as the following table will show:

Year.Miles of Railroad.Gross Receipts.
18712,850$12,395,826
18723,642 14,534,408
18733,728 15,430,619
18743,765 15,568,907
18753,823 18,422,587
18763,938 17,221,032
18774,075 20,714,496
18784,157 21,294,275

When the Granger law was repealed in 1878, the railroads were earning $1,000 per mile more than they were earning when the law was enacted. The present railroad law, which was passed in 1888, and has also been the subject of extreme criticism on the part of railroad organs, has had the same beneficial effect. The law, owing to the obstacles thrown in its way by the railroad managers, did not become operative until 1889. From July 1st, 1889, to June 30th, 1892, the gross railroad earnings of the Iowa roads, which for three years had been at a standstill, increased and were over $7,000,000 more in 1892 than they had been any year previous to 1889, as will be seen from the table below:

Gross Railroad Earnings in Iowa.
1886-87$37,539,730
1887-88 37,295,586
1888-89 37,469,276
1889-90 41,318,133
1890-91 43,102,399
1891-92 44,540,000

The net earnings per mile of the Iowa roads were $1,421.91 in the year 1888-89, and $1,821.37 the year following. The total net earnings of all Iowa roads during the year ending June 30th, 1891, were $14,463,106, against $11,861,310 during the year ending June 30th, 1889, and were still greater for the year ending June 30, 1892. No further vindication of the Iowa law is necessary. These figures show plainly that the lowering and equalizing of the rates not only increased the roads' business and income, but also their net earnings. And it must be remembered that the reports showing these facts were made by the railroad companies and were certainly not made with any intention of prejudicing the cause of the railroad manager.

James F. Hudson, the author of "The Railways and the Republic," is a very exhaustive and instructive writer upon the subject of railroad abuses. His material is well selected, and the subject ably presented. To the assertion of railroad managers, that railroad regulation injuriously affects the value of railroad property, he makes the following reply:

"Suppose that it were true, as these jurists and writers claim, that by the assertion of the public right to regulate the railways the value of their property is decreased, are there no other property rights involved? Do railway investments form the only property in the land which requires the protection of the law? Are we to understand these judgments and their indorsers to mean that because railroad property will depreciate if certain principles of justice prevail, therefore justice is to be set aside for the benefit of railway property? If the magnitude of interests involved is to be of weight in deciding such questions, let us put against 'the hundreds of millions' of railway property on the one side the thousands of millions of private property on the other. Railway regulation, according to a writer in the Princeton Review, is 'confiscation of railroad property;' but this puts wholly out of the question the idea of private property which is rendered possible by leaving unchecked the power of the railways over commerce and manufactures through the manipulation of freight rates. Of the two parties in interest the shippers represent far greater property interests than the carriers, although the latter, by their organization, are more powerful. I have yet to hear of a single case where restrictive railway legislation has seriously damaged the honest valuation of any railway. I have yet to learn of any seriously proposed scheme of regulation that has proposed to cut down railway profits below a fair dividend on capital actually invested. But the entire Nation knows of one notorious case in which the discriminating policy of the leading railways of the country has resulted in the wholesale confiscation of private property for the benefit of a favored corporation."

Concerning the inconsistency presented by the plea of railroad managers for a legalized pool, Mr. Hudson says:

"It has been argued for years that the subject is so delicate and vast that it must not be touched by legislation in the public interest. To protect the rights of the ordinary shipper against the favorite of the railway would so hamper the operations of trade, it has been repeated times without number, as to take away the independence of the railways and destroy the freedom of competition. Yet, after years of argument that Government has no constitutional power to interfere with the railways, and of demonstration that all such interference must be ill-advised and injurious, the railway logic comes to the surprising climax of appealing to legislation for the aid of the law in upholding their efforts to prevent competition."