OF BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1890. STATE OF IOWA. PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. DES MOINES: G. H. RAGSDALE, STATE PRINTER. 1891. RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. STATE OF IOWA, OFFICE OF BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, TO HON. HORACE BOIES, Governor of Iowa: In compliance with the law we respectfully submit the thirteenth annual report of this department, covering the full returns made to this Board by the several railroad companies doing business within the State of Iowa, from the 30th day of June, A. D. 1889, to the the 30th day of June, A. D. 1890, together with tabulated information compiled therefrom. This report also includes the investigations made by the Board in cases of complaints filed and the decisions rendered thereon, from the first day of January, A. D. 1890, to the first day of January, A. D. 1891, reports of serious accidents investigated, separate reports of which have been from time to time heretofore submitted to you; a statement of the litigation instituted during the past year by this Board and against the Board, and the present status of the cases still pending in the courts; a digest of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State rendered since our last report upon questions affecting the relations of the citizens of the State to the common carriers thereof; also a digest of the cases decided during the same period by the Inter-state Commerce Commission, and other matters of general public interest. As an appendix to this report we have added the Iowa statutes relating to railways and notes of the decision of the Supreme Court thereunder, for the careful and thorough compliation of which the Board and the citizens of the State as well are under great obligations to Hon. Emlin McClain, Chancellor of the Law Department of the State University. In November, 1889, Mr. Spencer Smith was re-elected as Commissioner for the full term of three years, from the 12th of January, A. D. 1890, and on that day the Board was organized by the selection of Mr. Smith as Chairman and W. W. Ainsworth as Secretary. GENERAL CONFERENCE OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS. This Board was represented at the annual meeting of the State Railroad Commissioners, held in the city of Washington on May 28th and 29th, A. D. 1890, by Commissioner Smith. Among the important matters considered was the necessity for a uniformity in railroad accounts from which statistics are compiled and uniformity in freight clasisfication. In ten States the 30th of |