was caused by the inordinate increase in the tonnage of lowpriced freights such as coal and ores, but official data of the Government were adduced showing that the reverse was true, the tonnage of coal and ores having increased only 74 per cent while that of other freights increased about 86 per cent.

(e) The Commission then had recourse to a misleading and fallacious statement. In order to inculcate the grossly erroneous idea that the railroads of the country are habitually violating the provisions of the Act to Regulate Commerce, certain of its members declared that during the three preceding years, 807 complaints of all sorts, or 269 a year, had been made to the Commission. This number of complaints, however, was utterly insignificant in comparison with the total number of freight transactions, amounting to many millions a year. Besides, it was shown from the records of the Commission that 784, or 97 per cent, of the 807 complaints were disposed of by the Commission informally and without a hearing, the complaints having been withdrawn, or the matters complained of having been corrected by the companies without subjecting the Commission to the trouble of a trial and the issuance of formal orders. Of the 23 cases heard and decided, or only 3 per cent of the complaints instituted, not a single case of unreasonable rates or of unjustly discriminating rates has been proved in the courts. This clearly demonstrated the correctness of Judge Cooley's declaration that the "Act to Regulate Commerce" tends to both reasonableness and equality of rate." Thus instead of proving to the House Committee

that the present law is inadequate, Mr. Knapp's statement was the means of bringing to the attention of that Committee the undeniable truth that the railroad companies are, in a remarkable degree, conforming to the requirements of the Act to Regulate Commerce, and that the administration of the law, even in the hands of a commission bitterly opposed to its vital provisions, has proved to be not only adequate, but highly successful and beneficial.

Furthermore, autocratic rate making, as advocated by the Commission, has been shown to be inapplicable to the cure of the evil of rate cutting; and therefore misdirected.

With all its statements fatally wounded as to facts the Commission utterly failed to impress the 57th Congress with the correctness of its assertions or the soundness of its arguments. The bill which it advocated did not reach the first stage of legislation in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, and the status of the Commission before Congress was impaired.

At various times the Commission has recommended that it be endowed with the power to order an increase of rates in order to maintain what it may regard as the proper relation of competition rates. No argument is needed in order to prove that such an exercise of the rate-making power would be exceedingly obnoxious to the people of this country.

In another particular the Commission has repeatedly attempted to usurp authority and to override the law. The Act to Regulate Commerce declares that its provisions shall apply only to connected lines of railway "under a

common control, management or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment." But in defiance of this plain limitation of law, in the Maximum Rate Case, and in other cases, the Commission has attempted to adjust the rates on one line with reference to the rates on other lines in other parts of the country. This shallow attempt to exercise a dispensing power has been sternly repelled by the courts. An order of the Interstate Commerce Commission in regard to rates from Chicago and St. Louis to Wilmington, North Carolina, as compared with rates to other points in other States, has recently been reversed by Judge Thomas R. Purnell in the U. S. District Court at Raleigh, N. C. Any attempt to set in motion this attempted assertion of power would inevitably clash with the constitutional provision that "No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce to the ports of one State over those of another.”

Since January 1, 1892, when Judge Cooley retired from office, the Commission has neglected to avail itself of the powers of regulation conferred upon it by the Act to Regulate Commerce, and as hereinafter shown has sought to gain autocratic power. It has denied that it is in any special manner responsible for the prevention of rate cutting; it has opposed an amendment designed to strengthen the penal provisions of the act, and it has been derelict in the discharge of its duties with respect to rate cutting. All this was fully set forth in an argument which I had the honor to make before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on June 6, 1902. In a word, during the last twelve years the Commission has persistently op

posed the method of regulation prescribed in the Act to Regulate Commerce, and has as persistently advocated the adoption of an autocratic method of regulation through the exercise of a dispensing power.

Thus far the Commission has signally failed before the courts and before Congress to secure the power to prescribe rates, to exercise a general dispensing power over the conduct of railroad transportation, to secure a part of the judicial function and to circumvent the judiciary. It has also completely failed to prove that the experiences of the country with respect to railroad rates justify its pretensions. On the other hand, its own record proves beyond question that the regulation of the railroads provided in the Act to Regulate Commerce has been highly beneficent and successful. The Commission seems to have been misled by the mere frictional resistances and incidental evils of the grandest and most beneficent system of transportation that the world ever saw.

THE FUTURE POLICY OF THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

Notwithstanding its repeated failures to acquire autocratic power, the Interstate Commerce Commission is apparently as determined as ever to prosecute its claim before the 58th Congress when it shall convene in December next. This purpose was clearly indicated by Hon. Charles A. Prouty, Interstate Commerce Commissioner, in an address delivered before The American Economic Association at its last annual meeting. On that occasion Mr. Prouty declared in favor of a scheme, the effect of which would be to create a fourth branch of the National Government-"A Dispens

ing Power in the United States." This power, as he clearly indicated, would be as independent of the legislative, executive and judicial departments of the Government as those departments are of each other. His argument is based upon the following attempted syllogism-There is no regulation of railroads in the United States, since regulation implies control; there is no control of railroadshence there is no regulation,

The infirmity of Mr. Prouty's syllogism lies in his premises. The American Railroad System is thoroughly regulated and controlled by an all-pervading and effective system of self-government, which is amply supplemented by strenuous and effective State and National governmental regulation. There is no business in this country which is more completely the subject of legal restraint than is that of railroad transportation. "The railroads are regulated by States, by cities, counties, towns, village boards of trustees, school districts, and by almost every other political subdivision of the State." The law of the common carrier and of the public highway and the decisions of the courts embrace volumes of regulation applicable to the conduct of railroad transportation, while the Act to Regulate Commerce amplifies, extends and particularizes the regulative principles of the common law in its application to the railroads. It has been asserted by an eminent lawyer that "the railroad is held to a more rigid responsibility in the courts than any other litigant." The judicial records of the country afford abundant proof of the correctness of this assertion. Besides, the published reports of the Government afford abundant evidence of the fact that the American