reasonable, and that, were he compelled to receive grain generally at the rates fixed by the statute, he could not store his own grain.  All these facts were admitted by demurrer, and Brass contended that if any man’s property were ever to be held to be appropriated by the public without compensation, and under no form of law at all save a predatory statute, it should be his; but the Supreme Court voted the Dakota statute to be a reasonable exercise of the Police Power,[31] and dismissed Brass to his fate.

The converse case is a very famous one known as Smyth v. Ames,[32] decided four years later, in 1898.  In that case it appeared that the State of Nebraska had, in 1893, reduced freight rates within the state about twenty-nine per cent, in order to bring them into some sort of relation to the rates charged in the adjoining State of Iowa, which were calculated to be forty per cent lower than the Nebraska rates.  Several of the most opulent and powerful corporations of the Union were affected by this law, among others the exceedingly prosperous and influential Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway.  No one pretended that, were the law to be enforced, the total revenues of the Burlington would be seriously impaired, nor was it even clear that, were the estimate of reduction, revenue, and cost confined altogether to the commerce carried on within the limits of the State of Nebraska, leaving interstate commerce out of consideration, a loss would be suffered during the following year.  Trade might increase with cheaper rates, or economies might be made by the company, or both causes and many others of increased earnings might combine.  Corporation counsel, however, argued that, were the principle of the statute admitted, and should all the states through which the line passed do the like, ultimately a point might be reached at which the railway would be unable to maintain, even approximately, its dividend of eight per cent, and that the creation of such a possibility was conceding the power of confiscation, and, therefore, an unreasonable exercise of the Police Power, by the State of Nebraska.  With this argument the Supreme Court concurred.  They held the Nebraska statute to be unreasonable.  Very possibly it may have been unsound legislation, yet it is noteworthy that within three years after this decision Mr. Hill bought the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, at the rate of $200 for every share of stock of the par value of $100, thus fixing forever, on the community tributary to the road, the burden of paying a revenue on just double the value of all the stock which it had been found necessary to issue to build the highway.  Even at this price Mr. Hill is supposed to have made a brilliant bargain.