Statement of the Case.

criminatory as against Troy when compared with the rates over such lines to Montgomery and Columbus.

The Commission, having heard this complaint on the evidence theretofore taken, ordered, on the 15th day of August, 1893, the roads participating in the traffic involved in this case "to cease and desist" from charging, demanding, collecting or receiving any greater compensation in the aggregate for services rendered in such transportation than is specified, as follows, to wit:

1. On class goods shipped from Louisville, Kentucky; Saint Louis, Missouri, or Cincinnati, Ohio, to Troy aforesaid, no higher rate of charge than is now charged and collected on such shipments to Columbus, Georgia, and Eufaula, Alabama.

2. On shipments of cotton from Troy aforesaid through Montgomery, Alabama, to New Orleans, Louisiana, no higher rate of charge than fifty cents per hundred pounds.

3. On shipments of cotton from Troy aforesaid for export through the Atlantic seaports, to wit, Brunswick, Savannah, Charleston, West Point or Norfolk, no higher rate of charge to these ports than is charged and collected on such shipments from Montgomery aforesaid.

4. On shipments of cotton from Troy aforesaid to the ports of Brunswick, Savannah or Charleston, no higher rate of charge than is charged and collected on such shipments from Montgomery aforesaid through Troy to said ports.

5. On shipments of class goods from New York, Baltimore or other Northeastern points to Troy aforesaid, no higher rate of charge than is charged and collected on such shipments through Troy to Montgomery aforesaid.

6. On shipments of phosphate rock from South Carolina. and Florida fields to Troy aforesaid, no higher rate of charge than is charged and collected on such shipments through Troy to Montgomery aforesaid.

The defendants having failed to heed these orders, the Commission thereupon filed this bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Middle District of Alabama, in equity, to compel obedience to the same. On the hearing in said court the bill of complaint was dismissed, and

Argument for Appellant.

complainant, the Interstate Commerce Commission, appealed the cause to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, at New Orleans, Louisiana. And, thereupon, in said last-named court, on the 2d day of June, 1896, the decree of the said Circuit Court of the United States for the Middle District of Alabama was in all things duly affirmed; and from this judgment and decree the appellant appealed to this court.

Mr. L. A. Shaver and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Whitney for appellant.

Mr. George F. Edmunds, on behalf of the appellant, on the question of the jurisdictional power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to make the order it did in this case, that the charge exacted by the carriers in respect of the particular goods in question should not exceed a certain named sum which the Commission, upon complaint, answers, issues, proofs and hearing, found to be reasonable and just, filed the following brief.

I. It is submitted with respectful confidence that the interstate commerce law is in all its civil aspects a remedial one. At the time of its passage the railway carriers were the absolute and irresponsible masters of all interstate commerce. The several States, in trying to break up, or at least to mitigate, the unjust tyranny of these great corporations and combinations that held the largest part of the intercourse of the people in their grasp (and which in many instances undertook to control political as well as commercial affairs), found themselves baffled, and practically defeated in their efforts by the national constitutional provision that only Congress could regulate interstate commerce. In this state of affairs, and to redress such enormous grievances, the Interstate Commerce Act was passed for the intended benefit of the whole body of the citizens of the Republic having a common grievance and a common interest in the vast commercial intercourse between all the States. This legislation was, therefore, in the very highest sense, and to the last degree, remedial.

Argument for Appellant.

II. Being thus remedial, the statute ought to be construed liberally to the attainment of the ends in view. Instead of being given the narrowest possible application and construction, it should, it is humbly submitted, be applied and construed by the judiciary in the largest latitude fairly consistent with its language. It ought not to be frittered away by the refinements of criticism, or made ineffectual because it does not possess all the inclusive and exclusive qualities of a plea in abatement, and may not be "certain to a certain intent in every particular." It is, perhaps, questionable taste for the bar to cite authority for this proposition, but it may be permitted to refer to a few of the vast number of the authorities on the subject. Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627; Silver v. Ladd, 7 Wall. 219; Beaston v. Farmers' Bank, 12 Pet. 102; United States v. Bank of North Carolina, 6 Pet. 29; Bank of United States v. Lee, 13 Pet. 107; Broom's Legal Maxims, 5th Am. ed. (3d London ed.) 80.

III. But the contention on the other side is that, while the Commission has power to decide what shall not be done, it has no power in the very same case to do complete justice by declaring what shall be done by the carriers in the given matter. We may well quote here the language of Broom's Legal Maxims: "Again, in construing an act of Parliament, it is a settled rule of construction that cases out of the letter of the statute, yet within the same mischief or cause of the making, thereafter shall be within the remedy thereby provided; and, accordingly, it is laid down that for the sure and true interpretation of all statutes (be they penal or beneficial, restrictive or enlarging of the common law) four things must be considered (1st) What was the common law before the making of the act; (2d) What was the mischief for which the common law did not provide; (3d) What remedy has been appointed by the legislature for such mischief; and (4th) The true reason of the remedy. And then the duty of the judges is to put such a construction upon the statute as shall suppress the mischief and advance the remedy to suppress the subtle inventions and evasions for continuing the mischief pro privato commodo, and to add force and life to the cure and

Argument for Appellant.

remedy according to the true intent of the makers of the act, pro bono publico. In expounding remedial laws, then, the courts will extend the remedy so far as the words will admit." It is submitted that the words of the statute in question do not require the application of the foregoing rules, -being too plain for their application. If they are not, then the rule should be applied.

IV. What, then, is the statute? At the risk of reiteration, I quote the crucial parts of some of the sections bearing on the subject of this brief. Act of February 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379.

"SEC. 1. .

All charges made for any services rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid, or in connection therewith, or for the receiving, delivering, storage or handling of such property, shall be reasonable and just; and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

"SEC. 2. That if any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall, directly or indirectly, by any special rate, rebate, drawback or other device, charge, demand, collect or receive from any person or persons a greater or less compensation for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property, subject to the provisions of this act, than it charges, demands, collects or receives from any other person or persons for doing for him. or them a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic, and under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, such common carrier shall be deemed guilty of unjust discrimination, which is hereby prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

"SEC. 3. That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation or locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever, or to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic to any undue

"SEC. 4. That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to charge or receive any greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of passengers or of like kind of property under substantially similar circumstances and conditions for a shorter than a longer distance over the same line, in the same direction.

SECS. 6 and 7 control the regulation of through rates, and provide against devices to break up continuous transportation, and for a general control of the Commission over that subject.

SEC. 9 provides that persons claiming to be damaged in respect of the matters embraced in the acts may complain to the Commission.

SEC. 11 establishes the Commission, and secures to it a nonpartisan character and a freedom from private interest or bias.

"SEC. 12 [as amended by the act of March 2, 1889, c. 382, 25 Stat. 855]: That the Commission hereby created shall have authority to inquire into the management of the business of all common carriers subject to the provisions of this act, and shall keep itself informed as to the manner and method in which the same is conducted; and shall have the right to obtain from such common carriers full and complete information necessary to enable the Commission to perform the duties and carry out the objects for which it was created; and the Commission is hereby authorized and required to execute and enforce the provisions of this act; . . . and for the purposes of this act the Commission shall have power to require by subpoena the attendance and testimony of witnesses, and the production of all books, papers, tariffs, contracts, agreements and documents relating to any matter under investigation. . .

"SEC. 13. That any person, firm, corporation or association, or any mercantile, agricultural or manufacturing society, or any body politic or municipal organization complaining of anything done or omitted to be done by any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act in contravention to the provisions thereof, may apply to said Commission by petition,