Congress had already been discussing federal regulation intermittently for some years. The so-called "Windom Report" of 1874 had advised federal construction and improvement of transportation facilities in order to lower rates through competition, but no action had resulted. In 1878 the "Reagan bill" had proposed government regulation, and from that time the subject had been almost continuously before Congress. In 1885 the Senate had appointed a select committee of five to investigate and report upon the regulation of freight and passenger transportation. The committee was headed by Shelby M. Cullom, who had been a member of the legislature of Illinois and later governor, in the years when the railroad and warehouse laws were being put into effect. It endeavored to discover all shades of opinion by visiting the leading commercial centers, and by consulting business men, state commissioners of railroads, Granger officials and others. After a somewhat thorough investigation, the committee expressed its conviction that no general question of governmental policy occupied so prominent a place in the attention of the public as that of controlling the growth and influence of corporations. The needed relief might be obtained, the committee thought, through any one of four methods: private ownership and management, with a greater or less degree of government oversight; government ownership and management; government ownership with private management under public regulations; partial state ownership and management in competition with private companies. The widespread opposition to state ownership of railroads, the commission thought, seemed to point to some form of government regulation and control of the existing situation.