The advocates of woman suffrage made an earnest effort to secure the passage of a joint resolution at this session for the amendment of the Constitution, granting suffrage to women. They were successful and the joint resolution was adopted by both branches of the General Assembly.
By far the most absorbing subject considered by this General Assembly was the growing demand of the people for an act regulating the freight charges of the railroads. Frank T. Campbell, an able young journalist of Jasper County, was serving his second term in the Senate. During the preceding session in 1872 he had given the subject of the regulation of railroad charges careful study. He had procured copies of a carefully prepared table of rates from the Illinois Railroad Commission, which had been made by experts at heavy expense. Taking these tables as a basis, Senator Campbell made a thorough study of the intricate problems involved and became well informed on the subject. With the assistance of Judge George R. Willett, Senator from Winneshiek County, on the legal questions involved, he prepared the bill which became the famous “Grange Law.” So general had been the feeling of opposition to the exorbitant rates fixed by the railroads, that delegations of business men came to Des Moines urging the enactment of laws regulating the charges of these common carriers.
Early in the session Senator Shane of Benton County offered a series of resolutions declaring that, “In the sense of the Senate this General Assembly should not adjourn until laws shall have been passed upon the following subjects:
Second. Prohibiting railroad companies doing business in this State, from hereafter buying or holding more real estate than is necessary to carry on the legitimate business of railroading therein, also prohibiting the consolidation of parallel or competing lines of railway, or the issue
