o all who asked for them railroad charters
were granted. The result has been the construction of railroads
in all parts of the country, many of them through districts of
country without business, or even population, as well as between
all business centres and through populous, fertile, and well
cultivated regions. Free trade in railroad building, and the too
liberal use of municipal credit in their aid, has induced the
building of some lines which are wholly unnecessary, and which
crowd, duplicate, and embarrass lines previously built and which
were fully adequate to the needs of the community.

"In Illinois, railroad enterprises have been particularly numerous
and have made the State renowned for having the most miles of
railroad track--for being the chief railroad State.

"But competition did not result according to public anticipation.
The competing corporations worked without sufficient remuneration
at competing points, and, to make good the losses resulting, were
often guilty of extortion at the non-competing points. They
discriminated against persons and places. Citizens protested
against these abuses in vain. The railroad corporations, when
threatened with the power of the Government, indulged in the language
of defiance, and attempted to control legislation to their own
advantage. At last public indignation became excited against them.
They did not heed it. They believed the courts would be their
refuge from popular fury. The indignation of the people expressed
itself in many ways and finally found utterance in the Constitution
of 1870. In this Constitution may be found all the phases of
opinion on the railroad question through which the English mind
has run. The railroad is declared a public highway. The establishment
of reasonable rates of charges is directed; competition between
railroads is recognized as necessary to the public welfare; and
the General Assembly is required to pass laws to correct abuses
and to prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates
and passenger tariffs on the different railroads of the State, and
enforce such laws by adequate penalties to the extent, if necessary
for that purpose, of forfeiture of their property and franchises.

"The Constitution did more than this. To correct abuses of the
interests of the farmers from whose fields warehousemen in combination
with corporate common carriers had been drawing riches, it declared
all elevators or structures wh