Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners: For the Year Ending June 30, 1878
At the same time they recognized the act of the Legislature as the only expression of the will of the people to which they could listen, and the commands of the act as the ones which they must heed and obey. They understood that the rigid schedule of rates imposed by the Tariff Law had been condemned as too narrow, incomplete and unjust, and that restraints were removed, not to give the railroad com panies absolute liberty of action, but rather to remove the chafing bands and fetters of which the companies had so much complained. They understood that the provisions of the act were not fully known and completely comprehended by a very large body of the citizens of Iowa, and that very many supposed that the Board had been made the grand reservoir of the powers of the State, so recently declared and established by the highest court in the land. And yet they found their powers, except those of a general and supervisory nature, very much limited and prescribed by the terms of the act, and thatin fact, in most instances their duties were to advise and express Opinions without any power to compel performance or respect decisions made. They well know also that many regarded this want of power in the Commission ers as a fatal defect in the scheme proposed by the Legislature; while on the other hand the idea of the act, namely, a supervisory power in a board with actual and ultimate power in the Legislature, chosen period ically by and from the people, was the very vital idea of the policy or scheme proposed. The body of the people, the railroad companies and the Commissioners themselves were unfamiliar with the practical workings of the plan or policy adopted, Recognizing fully all these, and many other difficulties and embarrassments which have not been enumerated, the Commissioners claim for themselves an earnest desire and purpose to endeavor the faithful discharge of the duties imposed, to observe carefully all the details and workings of the new policy, to conceal nothing, to extenuate nothing and to fully report all their acts, their observations and conclusions to the Governor as required by law to do. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
