, into the hands of receivers
selected by its former managers without the knowledge or notice of its
creditors, and issued orders for the management of the property which
greatly discriminated in favor of certain bondholders and were so
manifestly unjust that Judge Gresham, before whom the case was
subsequently brought, did not hesitate to say to them that "the boldness
of this scheme to aid the purchasing committee, by denying equal right
to all bondholders secured by the same mortgages, is equaled only by its
injustice." At the same time one of the counsel for the dissenting
bondholders characterized these strange orders as "the highwayman's
clutch on our throat, the robber's demand, 'Your money or your life.'"

The decision which the Supreme Court of the United States rendered in
the Granger cases in 1876, affirming the right of a State to control
railroad charges for the transportation of passengers and freight wholly
within the State, was a serious disappointment to railroad men, for it
was the first step toward wresting from them the power to arbitrarily
control the commerce of the country. Ever since that time it has been
their determined purpose to bring about, if possible, a reconstruction
of the Federal Supreme Court, in order to secure a reversal or
modification of the Granger decision. In the case of Peik vs. Chicago,
94th U. S., 176, the Supreme Court laid down the following broad
principle of law: "Where property has been clothed with the public
interest, the legislature may fix a limit to that which shall in law be
reasonable for its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the
people. If it has been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the
courts, must be appealed to for a change." In one of the Granger cases
the same court used the following language: "We know that this is a
power which may be abused, but that is no argument against its
existence. For protection against abuses by legislatures, the people
must resort to the polls."

Fourteen years later, in the case of C. M. & St. P. R. Co. vs. Minn.,
decided in October, 1890, the same court rendered a decision so
indefinite that the lawyers differed much in their opinions as to its
meaning, and it appears that the members of the court who made the
decision also differed in their opinions as to the meaning of the
decision; for Justice Bradley said in his dissenting opinion, in which
Justice Gray and Justice Lamar concurred, that the decision practi