and in the light of its general laws of incorporation
under which the charters were granted.

These court decisions established principles which
even now are of vital concern to business and poli-
tics. From that time to this no one has denied the
right of States to fix maximum charges for any
business which is public in its nature or which has
been clothed with a public interest; nor has the in-
clusion of the railroad and warehouse businesses in
that class been questioned. The opinion, however,
that this right of the States is unlimited, and there-
fore not subject to judicial review, has been practi-
cally reversed. In 1890 the Supreme Court de-
clared a Minnesota law invalid because it denied a
judicial hearing as to the reasonableness of rates ¹ ;and the courts now assume it to be their right and
duty to determine whether or not rates fixed by
legislation are so low as to amount to a deprivation
of property without due process of law. In spite
of this later limitation upon the power of the
States, the Granger decisions have furnished the
legal basis for state regulation of railroads down
to the present day. They are the most significant
achievements of the anti-monopoly movement of
the seventies.

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