Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/142

 and restrain the respondent from charging complainant for transportation of express matter more than fair and reasonable rates, such charges in no case to exceed the rates charged on similar matter to itself or any other express company. The following are the main points of the decision: “the railroad company is a quasi-public corporation and bound by the laws regulating the powers and duties of common carriers, persons and property. It is the duty of such company as a public servant to receive and carry goods for all persons alike, without injurious discrimination as to rates or terms.”

This decision confirmed a principle which the people had long been contending for, viz: that railroads are public carriers; that as such they are bound to carry all goods offered them by any party at reasonable rates; that they have no right to discriminate in favor of preferred patrons or against individuals or corporations that patronize them. That in cases where extortion has been practiced they may be compelled to disgorge. Judge McCrary went still farther and declared the power of the court to fix a maximum rate where no such rate is fixed by law. This was a decision that deeply interested the farmers and shippers of the West, where unjust discriminations had long been practiced in favor of persons and business houses who enjoyed the advantage of having special rates for transportation secretly granted them by railroad officials.

In 1881 there was living on the east side of the Des Moines River in Boone County, near the track of the Northwestern Railway, in a little cabin, the widow of a Mr. Shelly who had been killed in a railroad accident. Her eldest daughter Kate was about fifteen years of age. On the night of the 6th of July, a terrific storm of wind and rain swept over that region. Honey Creek, ordinarily a small stream coming from the prairie south and west of the town of Boone, winds its way through the forest in a westerly direction emptying into the Des