Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-07
THE GAZETTE FORT WORTH TEXAS THURSDAY ,AUGUsT l.


ample power to regulate railways and
other common carriers as to purely loca
business done within the limits of the
state and to that end may create a CON-
mission or other agency clothed with
full power to fix and regulate
FREIGHT AND PASSENGER TARIFFS,
This doctrine Is fully maintained by
the supreme court of the United States
in the "railroad commission cases' be-
ginning with Stone and others VS..
Farmers Loan and Trust Company, 1l6-
q. s. page 307 which grew out of the stat
ute of Mississippi, giving railroad come
mission power to regulate and charge
rates. In that case the court says:
"The commissioners have power: /. To
approve, and if need be to fix the tariff
of charges for TT importation, both of
persons and property, by which the
company must be governed, and to ex-
ercise watchful and careful supervision
over such tariff. 2. To notify the COM
pany of the times and places when and
where the propriety of change in ex-
isting tariffs will be considered. 8. To
entertain complaints made by any
person against tariff which has
been approved, on the ground that the
same is in any respect for more than a
just compensation, or that the charges
amount to, or operate SO as to effect I'M
just discrimination, and after due notice
to the company and proper inquiry had.
to make any changes that may be deemed
proper, - etc. All of this comes
clearly within the supervising power of
the state in the administration of the af-
fairs of its domestic corporations
pages 332 and 1881. And SO, while the
court carefully guards the dividing line,
and does not sanction the interference
of state with the just domain OF con-
gress in regulating interstate commerce,
1t clearly establishes the right of state
to regulate by commission, or otherwise,
the freight and passenger tariffs of COM
mon carriers within its borders.
Justices harlan and Field dissent from
the majority OF the court, but the former
in his dissenting opinion says: ''In ex-
pressing the foregoing views, l would
not be understood as denying the power
of the state to establish a railroad COM
mission, or to enforce regulations not in-
consistent with the essential charter
rights of the companies, in reference to
the general conduct of their merely local
business. !" I'D. page 342.
In discussing the power of the legisla-
ture. in the case OF Mum VS.. Illinois,
E94 U. S. page 1851 Chief Justice Waite
says: "Tnis brings US to inquire as to
the principles upon which this power of
regulation rests, IN order that we may
determine what is within, and what is
without its operative effect. Looking
then to the common law, from whence
came the right which the constitution
protects, we find that when private prop
=, 4 Ill,
it ceases to be juris privati only" This
was said by Lord Chief Justice Hale
more than 200 years ago in his treatise
De Partibus Maris, I. Harg. Law
Tracts, rs, and has been accepted with
out objection as an essential element in
the law of property ever since.
Property does not become clothed with
public interest when used in manner
to make it of public consequence. and
effect the community at large. When,
therefore, one devotes his property to
use ID which the public has an interest,
he, IN effect, grants TO the public an in
terest in that use, and must submit to be
controlled by the public for the common
good, to the extent Of the interest he has
thus created. ~ Id. D. 1875.
So it is, that they who assert on the
Germs with whose charges the public has
no right to interfere, and they who assert
on the other hand, that railroads are
public property, are in the eyes of the
law both wrong. Railroads are by law,
public highways, and yet they are pri-
vate property, clothed with a public use,
and while they carry with them, even
the sovereign right of eminent domain,
they are at the same time, like other |
common carriers, subject to regulation |
by the state.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
In examining the legal aspects of this |
question, it must not be over |
looked that congress has power under |
the constitution to regulate Interstate |
commerce as begins in the state, and |
passes out of it, or such as begins out
side and comes within, and it has often |
been a question of some difficulty to de-
termine where the dividing line should
be drawn. If state regulation is con-
fined purely to local traffic, if will per-
haps, not cover one-tenth of the
immense commerce carried on within
its borders, ana it will be
easy for the effect of state
law seeking to regulate freights to be
nugatory, by making up on
long hauls in interstate freights what is
reduced on local freights. Mr.. Pierce,
In his work on railways, page 46S, thus
lays down the doctrine upon this ques-
ton: "Where business ia solely within
The state, no question arises under this
as in such case it is purely
matter of state concern. Where 1t
combines commerce, some exclusively
within and some without the state the pro-
vision is held not to interdict state regu-
alton acting within the state, on both
kinds alike, until congress exercises its
power which until exerted
.emaiDs in allegiance.
The primary object and scope of the
regulation If in such case local and
domestic, while the extra territorial
effect, being only indirect, it is not pro-
libited so long as the congressional
power remains quiescent. This posi-
ion was supposed to be sustained by the
cases. "a U. s., 135, 1853,
rs. These cases grew out of statutes
passed in Illinois in 1873, and in wisoon-
in, Iowa and Minnesota IN about 1919
rhe Wisconsin and Iowa acts fixed the
maximum rates, aud the Illinois and
Minnesota acts provided that commits
toner's should fix the schedule of railway
ariffs.
But, the doctrine as laid down by Mr..
oiarca and which he thnuuht uos fullv