The McCook tribune., 1897-11-05
IT HAS NO POWER.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF IN
TER-STATE COMMERCE
COMMISSION.
The Body Cannot Fix Freight or Pas
senger Charges without Further Au-
thority from Congress What the
Commission Says About 1t.

KNOWN as the freight bureau cases,
'that under the interstate commerce
act the commission has no power to
prescribe the tariff of rates which shall
| control in the future" and that Con-
gress has ot4conferred upon the COM
mission the legislative power of pre-
scribing rates either maximum or min
imum or absolute
This decision was rendered in. cases
where the commission had held the
rates complained of to be unreasonable
and unjust in violation of the inter-
state commerce law, had found what
rates would be reasonable and just,
and had ordered the carriers to cease
and desist from charging more than
the reasonable rates so determined.
That the commission was authorized to
require carriers not to make higher
charges than those shown and found
to be reasonable in cases investigated
by it had been generally believed, and
the commission had in that way en-
forced the provision in the law for
reasonable and just rates" since its
organization.
The commission has recently, in an
opinion by Chairman Morrison, rem
dered decision in case against the
Eureka Springs Ry. Co., involving the
reasonableness of rates complained of.
In the concluding portion of this deci-
sion the ruling of the Supreme Court
in the Freight Bureau Cases is dis
cussed, and mention is there made also
of prior Supreme Court decision
in the Social Circle Case" which re-
ferred in an ambiguous way to the
power Of the commission in respect to
future rates. The commission says:
while thus deciding that under the
Interstate Commerce Act, power to
prescribe rates which shall control in
the future has in no case been given to
the commission, it is conceded that the
act has given the commission power
to determine what in reference to the
past was reasonable and just, whether
as maximum or minimum or absolute,
rates. How this power to say what
was reasonable and just in the past
will benefit the public, correct any
abuse, be of any advantage or afford
any relief to shippers who are made to
pay whatever unreasonable rates and
charges the carriers may in the future
establish or continue to exact, is
matter about which the court gives no
information" In the Social Circle
case' the court said: "The reasonable
ness of the rate in given case de-
pends on the facts, and the function
of the commission is to consider the
facts and give them their proper
weight. What is their proper weight
which can be given them as to the
past? For what purpose is the COM
mission to consider them? How can
the fact that the rates were unreason-
able and unjust in the past be given
or have any weight while
like unreasonable and unjust
rates are, and may h continue
to be, exacted in the future? In this
case the court adopted the view of the
late Justice Jackson that subject to
the two leading prohibitions that their
charges shall not be unjust or unrea-
sonable, and that they shall not un-
Justly discriminate so as to give undue
preference or advantage Or subject to
undue prejudice or disadvantage per-
sons or traffic similarly circumstanced.
the Act to Regulate Commerce leaves
common carriers as they were at COM
mon law"
, 1--WE are here advised that the act to
regulate commerce subjected common
carriers to two leading prohibitions to
which they were not subject at COM
mon law, one of which is that their
charges shall not be unjust or unrea-
sonable. Until the court decided to
the contrary in the Freight Bureau
cases it was believed that this prohi-
bition meant that the charges of COM
mon carriers shall not be unreasonable
and unjust in the future or after the
time the act was passed. In these lat
ter cases the court says: The fact that
the carrier is given the power to es-
tablish rates in the first instance, and
The right to change, and the conditions
Of such change specified, is Irresistible
evidence that this action on the part
of the carrier is not subordinate to
and dependent upon the Judgment of
the commission But it is nowhere
decided or claimed that under the in
-erstate commerce or other act the
right of the carrier to establish and
10 change its rates is subordinate to
or dependent upon the judgment or ac-
ton of any other tribunal; and freed
from the judgment and made inde-
sendent of the commission, interstate
carriers are not subject to any provi-
sion of law requiring their rates and
charges to be just or reasonable
1.-The first section of the act to regl-
late commerce provides that all
charges made for any transportation
service shall be reasonable and just;
and every unjust and unreasonable
charge for such service is prohibited
and declared to be unlawful Under
the decision of the Supreme Court no
charge for such service is prohibited
Reasonable and just rates are contem-
plated, not required"
Under the law so construed, the
commission has power to say what in
respect to the past was unreasonable