Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/191

, F. D. Bayless and other firm and aggressive advocates of the reform. In the House were James G. Berryhill, L. W. Lewis, N. B. Holbrook, John F. Dayton, John T. Hamilton, John W. Luke, James A, Smith, John C. Hall and W. H. Redman who was chosen Speaker.

The bills making the office of Railroad Commissioner elective by the people, empowering the Board to make rates prohibiting discriminations and placing the entire business of railway management and operation under a system of legal control, were easily carried through the General Assembly. Public sentiment had become irresistible and there was little opposition to the reform in either branch of the General Assembly. The railways succeeded in defeating the House bill establishing a schedule of maximum freight rates only to see substantially the same rates adopted and put in force by the elective Railroad Commissioners a few months later. This schedule was based upon rates voluntarily adopted by the railroad companies for shipments between Chicago and other Illinois points. The diplomacy of Mr. Berryhill secured the adoption of a most effective long and short haul clause in the general railway law enacted at this time. There was a disagreement between the House and Senate upon a number of material points in the bill under consideration, which were referred to a conference committee composed of Senators J. H. Sweney, Ben McCoy, Lafayette Young, O. W. Schmidt and James Dooley, and Representatives James G. Berryhill, A. B. Cummins, Silas Wilson, John W. Luke and John T. Hamilton.

A section was reported by the conference committee which made any low fixed rate by any carrier over any part of its line applicable to its entire system. This provision was stronger than any requirement incorporated in the original bill as it passed the House. Its adoption was in effect the most advanced position taken by the antimonopolists in regard to discriminations in rates. Its far reaching importance was not discovered by the