The passage of the last named act aroused unusual commotion along the proposed railroad line from Cedar Falls, via Fort Dodge, to Sioux City, in consequence of the railroad managers declaring that not another mile of that road would ever be built until the proviso for control should be repealed. Work ceased along the line; the laborers were discharged; the people who expected a railroad through their country became alarmed. Meetings were held at Fort Dodge, Sioux City, and other points, and extraordinary efforts were put forth to induce Governor Stone to call an extra session of the legislature for the purpose of repealing the so-called "_Doud Amendment_." A committee of prominent citizens was appointed to visit, in person, the members of the general assembly, and have them sign a request to the governor in favor of an extra session. This committee, knowing my record on this question, did not do me the honor of a personal visit, but they sent me a letter (still in my possession), to which I replied through the public press, strongly opposing their movement, and, after reciting a portion of the facts herein recapitulated, earnestly requested them to let the Doud Amendment alone; for I believed it to be one of the wisest measures ever enacted by our legislature, and, having been one of its foremost advocates in that body, I would still defend it. The effort to call an extra session failed, and the railroad managers in the north, finding their efforts, in that instance, vain, after frightening the people nearly a year, concluded to go to work again, and so the building of that road went on to completion. We had now succeeded in making the question of control a matter of contract between the state and the companies above named; so that, so far as they are concerned, no person or authority can question that _right_. Some of these roads being parallel lines across the state, the limitation of their charges will virtually control the others. I have always maintained that the state, by virtue of her sovereignty, possesses the right to regulate and limit railroad charges, whenever the public necessity, or the public welfare requires such limitation, without any special reservation in any charter or contract. But inasmuch as eminent counsel denied it, I was one of the original prompters and friends of the "Doud Amendment." I was this for the further reason, also, that history teaches me that when the interpretation of constitutions or doubtful laws, in cases where the poor and humble were on one side and wealth and power on the other side, that interpretation has been almost invariably on the side of wealth and power.