STRUGGLE FOB EQUALITY 83 



III 



The movement to regulate railways engaged in interstate commerce 

 has run a similar course. The Interstate Commerce Act passed by Con- 

 gress in 1887 was the logical sequence of the Supreme Court in the 

 year immediately preceding, in Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway 

 Company v. Illinois, deciding that the states have no right to regulate 

 interstate commerce. Subsequent court decisions, however, so inter- 

 preted the act of 1887 as to leave the Interstate Commerce Commission 

 without the substance of power. But successive amendments have in 

 large measure made good its deficiencies and enlarged the scope of its 

 authority. In 1896, the power to compel witnesses to testify was 

 definitely obtained. The Elkins law of 1903 subjected the railway cor- 

 porations which violate the law as well as their agents to a fine, and 

 made the recipient as well as the giver of a rebate guilty of a mis- 

 demeanor. Any departure from the published rate was prohibited. In 

 1906, the power to fix a maximum rate was expressly granted the com- 

 mission in addition to the power to declare a rate unreasonable which it 

 already possessed. To prevent "midnight tariffs" thirty days' notice 

 of change in rates was required. In 1910, the commission was em- 

 powered to suspend all advances in rates, and an attempt was made to 

 clothe it with greater power in administering the long and short haul 

 clause. The authority to establish and enforce reasonable classifications 

 of property for transportation was also bestowed. Express and sleeping 

 car companies, pipe lines used in transporting oil, and telegraph, tele- 

 phone and cable companies have been included within the sweep of the 

 law. Once more, plenary power over the accounts of the railways has 

 been granted. Manifestly, if publicity and uniformity of accounts are 

 as important to the solution of the railway problem as many suppose, 

 the most decisive step has been taken. 



Moreover, since 1906. it is no longer practicable for the carriers to 

 disobey the orders of the commission with impunity as was previously 

 the case. For cumulative penalties begin to run the moment an order 

 becomes effective unless the carrier secures the intervention of a court. 

 As a consequence, the commission has a certain standing and dignity 

 which it has not hitherto enjoyed. It is probable also that interference 

 by the courts will be less common in the future than in the past. The 

 present law restricts interference to cases where the act complained of 

 is either ultra vires or unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court deci- 

 sions overruling the pretensions of the Commerce Court indicate that an 

 established place has been won for the commission. Such are some of 

 the more important facts incidental to a movement which has been 

 subjecting railway property to public control in the interest of fair play. 3 



3 Frank Haigh Dixon, ' ' The Interstate Commerce Act as Amended in 

 1906," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 21, 1906, pp. 22-51, and the "Mann 



