APPENDIX. - 581 



the powerful corporations the people need a strong tribunal, not hound by 

 technicalities, with power to go at once to the pith of any matter presented, do 

 equity at once and have its decisions enforced, until set aside by due course of 

 law. The Interstate Commerce Commission was designed as such a tribunal. 

 Its authority is insufficient for its duties. Tlio people can give it the necessary 

 power if they have a mind to. If they will not do this, it is childish to com- 

 plain of oppression in Interstate Commerce. 



The following decisions of the Commission, while not necessarily having 

 the force of law, have been nearly always complied with. The Commission, up 

 to the close of 1898, had made nine hundred eighty-five decisions, covering 

 most of the points that are likely to arise between the people and the rail, 

 roads in Interstate Commerce. The following selections from those decisions 

 will be found of interest. The selection has necessarily been confined to 

 decisions establishing general principles. It will be noted that in nearly all 

 cases the contest was between localities, rather than between individuals. 

 Doubtless this has been because the discriminations against individuals have 

 been better concealed. Discriminations between localities are obvious, and are 

 usually taken up by boards of trade or other influential commercial bodies. 

 The numbers prefixed to the decisions indicate the number of the decision on 

 the docket of the Commission. 



5. The Interstate Commerce Commission has not been given the authority 

 to authorize the grant, by railroad companies, of special privileges to individ- 

 uals or corporations, or to sanction such as are not in harmony with the act to 

 regulate commerce, or to suspend that act for the benefit of particular 

 industries. 



7. A petition was presented by a manufacturing corporation, which recited 

 in substance that railroad companies had been accustomed to permit it to pro- 

 cure its raw material at a distance, manufacture its goods therefrom, and then 

 ship the goods to a market at the same aggregrate rate for transportation of 

 both raw material and manufactured goods as would be charged had there been 

 no stoppage in transit and no manufacture; that this privilege of manufacturing 

 in transit was valuable to the corporation and to the community in which its 

 business was located, and wronged no one ; and petitioner prayed that it might 

 be sanctioned by the Commission. But no authority to that eflect having been 

 conferred upon the Commission, the petition was dismissed. 



12. It seems not to be illegal for railroad companies connecting Boston with 

 eastern points to make the rates from such points to Boston upon grain and 

 provisions for export as low as the rates to New York, although the rates upon 

 like property for local consumption are higher to Boston than to New York, 

 the distance being somewhat greater. 



15. So far as a railroad company, whose line is entirely within one state, 

 issues through bills of lading over its connecting lines to points in other states, 

 and makes "through rales, it falls under the provision of the Interstate Com- 

 merce Act. 



19. That the phrase " under substantially similar circumstances and con- 

 ditions " in the fourth section, is used in the same sense as in the second section ; 

 and under the qualified form of the prohibition in the fourth section carriers 

 are required to judge in the first instance with regard to the similarity or dis- 

 similarity of the circumstances and conditions that forbid or permit a greater 

 charge for a shorter distance. 



20. That the judgment of carriers in respect to the circumstances and con- 

 ditions is not fintil, but is subject to the autliority of the Commission and of the 

 courts, to decide whether error has been committed, or whether the statute has 



