CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



173 



Mr. Eeagan, of Texas : " At the threshold 

 has been raised a question of the extent of our 

 authority. When we come to look at this sub- 

 ject we are confronted by the fact that most of 

 the railroad corporations are the creatures of 

 the State governments. So far as the power 

 of Congress over this subject goes it is derived 

 from the cl-iuse of the Constitution which con- 

 fers upon Congress the power to regulate com- 

 merce among the States. It has to that extent 

 the power to regulate commerce. That power 

 carries with it no other powers over these cor- 

 porations. The Congress have no power, and 

 this committee and this bill assume no power, 

 to operate on the railroads as railroads, or 

 upon their franchises or corporate rights. And 

 when the committee have been asked to rem- 

 edy other evils, such as the watering of stock 

 as a pretext of levying additional tribute upon 

 the people, we have had to meet the friends of 

 such propositions as that with the statement 

 that we have no power, however much we 

 sympathize with them, to take hold of these 

 corporations and deal with them as such, but 

 oar powers are limited alone to the regulation 

 of commerce among the States. While under 

 an unbroken line of precedents the Supreme 

 Court have held that the power is exclusively 

 in Congress to regulate interstate commerce, 

 they hold that the power of Congress is not 

 only exclusive, but that it is ample and as com- 

 plete in every respect as the power of the State 

 to regulate commerce within the State. 



" Perhaps I may as well say that Mr. Story, 

 in his ' Commentaries,' and the justices of the 

 Supreme Court, in their opinions, a number of 

 them, refer to the fact that the point has been 

 made that railroads were not in existence 

 when the Constitution was made, from which 

 it has been inferred that its provisions did not 

 cover the regulation of commerce on railroads. 

 The papers connected with the formation of 

 the Federal Constitution and the transition 

 from the Articles of Confederation to the con- 

 stitutional government, show that the question 

 which was most conspicuous in those discus- 

 sions was one which looked to limiting the 

 power of a State to legislate in a hostile manner 

 against the commerce of its sister States, and 

 to conferring upon Congress a power which 

 would prevent them from doing so. 



" It is held by the Supreme Court in some of 

 its decisions that it was an evidence of the 

 wisdom, the foresight, and the prescience of 

 that convention that in its few simple, ele- 

 mental rules of government it was wiser than 

 it could itself foresee, by making a regulation 

 which applied to all the future modes of carry- 

 ing on commerce among the States, as well as 

 to those which existed at the time. That is as 

 much as I desire to say on that point. 



" We take the position that we have no 

 power to regulate commerce over railroads 

 outside of that power which follows the au- 

 thority to regulate commerce among the States. 

 With that settled under the provisions of the 



Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme 

 Court, our pathway is clear on the question of 

 power. 



" I desire, now, to call the attention of the 

 House to the provisions of the substitute offered 

 by myself for the original bill. And I desire 

 the attention of the House for a few moments 

 while I endeavor to show that by labor and 

 study the Committee on Commerce of the 

 Forty-fifth Congress succeeded in developing a 

 few simple, plain, clear, and easily understood 

 rules that will obviate the greater number of 

 complaints against the action of the railroads, 

 without in any way embarrassing the railroads 

 or crippling their usefulness. 



" And 1 desire to say here, that in three 

 Congresses, and on three committees, I have 

 heard no member of the committee of the 

 House express any opinion which indicated an 

 hostility to railroads. We all realize their 

 beneficent effect in building up our commerce, 

 in promoting the prosperity of the country, 

 and generally in contributing to the progress 

 of the civilization and wealth of our country. 

 No purpose has existed to cripple them; no 

 one has expressed any desire to inflict a serious 

 injury upon those great interests. 



" How do we meet this great question ? We 

 propose, first, that one man should not be 

 charged more than another man for like ser- 

 vices by a railroad. That is a simple rule, so 

 elemental in its truth that no one can or will 

 controvert its justice or propriety. 



" What next-? As a corollary to that we 

 propose to say that no rebates or drawbacks 

 shall in any case be allowed. Eebates and 

 drawbacks are simply a means of discrimina- 

 tion which we propose to cut off. 



" Next, we propose that the people shall not 

 be deprived of the benefit of competition 

 among these corporations by their pooling 

 freights between competing lines. We pro- 

 pose to secure to the people the benefits of full 

 competition. 



" We propose, next, to protect the people of 

 localities by a partial restriction upon the 

 powers of corporations, not by taking away 

 their power of discrimination, but by limiting 

 their power of discrimination between places. 

 And the best rule which we were able to 

 adopt, which does not quite approach equity, 

 but leaves a larger discretion than strict equity 

 would justify, being the best rule we could 

 adopt, is one by which we declare that more 

 shall not be charged for a shorter than for a 

 longer distance on the same haul. For in- 

 stance, we declare that no more shall be 

 charged for a car-load of freight for one hun- 

 dred miles than for three hundred or five hun- 

 dred miles on the same line. 



" Kemember, we do not use the term pro- 

 rate, we do not use the idea prorate. We 

 simply make the car-load the unit. We then 

 provide that more shall not be charged for a 

 car-load for a shorter than for a longer dis- 

 tance. 



