ch rules and regulations as may from time to time be
enacted and provided for by the General Assembly of Iowa...." In 1866 an
attempt was made in the General Assembly to regulate rates, but the
Attorney-General, to whom the question of constitutionality was
submitted, held in his opinion that it was not in the power of the
legislature to prescribe rates for railroad companies. This opinion
provoked much indignation among the people of the State, and led to the
expression of a sound public opinion by legislative acts which could not
be misunderstood.

When the Twelfth General Assembly (in 1868) regranted to the Chicago,
Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company the lands originally granted
to the Mississippi and Missouri Company, it only did so upon the
condition that "said railroad company, accepting the provisions of this
act, shall at all times be subject to such rules, regulations and rates
of tariff for transportation of freight and passengers as may from time
to time be enacted and provided for by the General Assembly of the State
of Iowa...." The same restricting clause, known as the Doud Amendment,
was added to all other land grant acts passed by the Twelfth and
subsequent General Assemblies, and the various companies willingly and
gladly accepted it.

The abuses of which the people of Iowa complained were far from being
confined to their State. They were practiced throughout the Northwest,
and the demand for reform was as loud in Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Illinois as it was in Iowa. In 1871 laws were passed in Illinois and
Minnesota fixing maximum charges for the transportation of freight and
passengers and prohibiting discriminations. The railroads claimed that a
State did not have the right to prescribe rates and refused to be bound
by these laws. Instead of modifying their policy, they became daily more
arrogant. Discriminations which had before been practiced under the veil
of secrecy, or which had been defended by railroad managers as
exceptions to the general rule made necessary by a peculiar combination
of circumstances wholly beyond their control, were now openly and
defiantly practiced by several of the larger roads. The Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company, in its effort to annihilate a
rival, went so far as to openly announce to the public its intention to
entirely disregard distance as a factor in rate-making. It gradually
became the general rule to wage war against rivals at competitive