In no instance was this general proposition better demonstrated than in the railroad problem. For nearly sixty years of the nineteenth century the chief obstacle to internal trade had been the lack of the means of transportation. To overcome this difficulty the states had first built their own canals and railroads. Many of the state enterprises failing because of weak administration, the states had surrendered the management of railroads to private corporations, but the public continued to share in railroad construction through numerous grants of aid by federal, state and local governments. For a number of years almost the only activity of the public in regard to railroads was to foster and protect the interests of the railroad companies. In the seventies the public gradually came to a realization of the fact that the railroad companies were displaying a lamentable lack of regard for the interests of the public. Persons and communities found themselves entirely at the mercy of railroad corporations, which, by vicious discriminations, built up and destroyed where they chose, and even endeavored to control arbitrarily the economic future of entire groups of states regardless of their natural advantages or the choice of their people. And not only did the railroad companies themselves become a source of danger, but they were instrumental in the creation and development of great industrial combinations, which were equally indifferent to the welfare of the general public. The transportation problem of the United States was no longer that of providing facilities, but of controlling and regulating the existing facilities in such a manner that reasonable rates and services would be given to the public which had entrusted the business of transportation to private agencies. The demand for relief was first voiced in state legislation. The states being powerless to regulate interstate trade, the national government found it necessary to act, and, in 1887, the Interstate Commerce Law was passed, having for its chief purpose the prevention of unjust discrimination. As a regulative measure the law proved inadequate, its most important provisions being emasculated by court decisions, and the century ended with effective railway regulation unaccomplished. No less pressing than the problem of regulating railroads, over which the internal commerce of the nation was carried on, was the question of regulating the great industrial combinations through which a large part of the buying and selling of the products of the country was controlled. The unfair advantages secured by large combinations because of their abundance of capital and the discriminating favors of railroads enabled them often to throttle competition and to establish monopolies that were a menace to the public. This situation likewise called forth federal legislative measures intended to prevent the monopolization of trade. Previous to 1900, however, but little application of the law was made.