s of
the Northwest, but they radiate from the principal ports of the Atlantic
and the Gulf of Mexico toward the interior.

We now enter upon the third period of the history of American railroads,
the period of combinations. During the time of great activity in
railroad construction following the War of the Rebellion many abuses in
railroad management had been developed, which caused general complaint
and led to what is known as the Granger movement. Laws were demanded,
especially in the agricultural States of the West, which should regulate
the rates, methods of operation, and the political relations of the
railroads. The friends of this movement were successful in the political
contests that followed, and Granger legislatures were elected in the
States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Laws were passed
fixing the rates on different classes of roads and providing penalties
for their violation. The companies contested these acts in the courts,
but were defeated at every step, until in 1877 the Supreme Court of the
United States sustained the constitutionality of the Granger laws. In
the meantime railroad managers tried their utmost to render, by shrewd
manipulation, these laws obnoxious, and they finally succeeded in having
them repealed or so amended as to render them largely ineffectual.

It was the principal object of the Granger movement to do away with the
many discriminating tariffs which so injuriously affected local points.
It is true, discriminations between individuals were practiced at
business centers, but rates upon the whole were low at such points as
compared with those which obtained at local stations. While the Granger
contest was still going on in the West, a new evil developed in the
East, which became characteristic of the period and finally grew into
one of the most intolerable abuses of railroad management. Railroad men
had gradually learned that it was in their power to maintain high rates
at competitive as well as at non-competitive points, provided all the
roads centering at such points could be induced to cooperate, or rather
to conspire for that purpose. The final solution of the problem was,
after some experimentation, found in the device to control the prices of
transportation generally known as the pool. It is doubtful whether any
contrivance connected with railroad management ever threatened to
subvert long-established principles of the common law more completely
than this. Withi