The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-06-08
COMMERCE COURT
BADLY SMASHED
Powers 1t Has Assumed Are
Not Conferred Upon it
By Statute.

Washington, June 8.-Repeated
blows We're given the new commerce
court yesterday by the supreme court
of the United States, which upheld
the exclusive jurisdiction of the inter-
state commerce commission over the
administrative machinery of the fed
eral rate laws.
The principal decision was an
nounced by Chief Justice White in
the so-called Proctor & Gamble"
case. He was sustained by the entire
court. In substance, he held that the
commerce court was not to substitute
it's judgment for the interstate COM
merce commission in the administra-
ton of the rate laws. The specific
point ruled upon was that parties who
failed to get relief before the inter
state commerce commission have no
right to go into the commerce court
and have that court pass upon the
facts to ascertain If they should have
been granted relief.
In the course of his opinion. how
ever, Chief Justice White went
further. He showed that the COM
merce court was not given new and
strange" powers, but succeeded to the
powers of the circuit courts in exist
ence when the commerce court was
created and that the commerce court
was entirely a court of law. In cases
yet to he passed upon it is claimed
the domain of law and gave its judg-
ment on pure questions of fact.
Chief Justice White stated the
question for decision to be whether
the authority of the commerce court
was confined to enforcing and re-
straining. as the case might be. af-
firmative orders of the commission, or
whether it had the power to exert its
own judgment b yoriginal interpreta-
tion of the administrative features Of
the act to regulate commerce and
upon that assumption to treat re-
fusal of the commission to grant re-
lief as an affirmative order and ac-
cordingly pass upon it's correctness.
Both from the words Of the act
creating the commerce court and
from the general scheme of rate
regulation, the chief justice said 1t
was to be seen that the commerce
court had no such broad powers as
1t claimed to possess.
ut cannot be disputed" he said,
that the act creating the commerce
court was intended to be but part
of an existing system for the regula-
tion of interstate commerce and that
the making of it part of that system
was not intended to destroy the ex-
listing machinery or method of regu-
lation but to cause 1t to be more ef-
ficient by providing a more harmoni-
Gus means for securing the judicial
enforcement of the act to regulate
commerce.
Chief Justice White declared that
congress had created the interstate
commerce commission as a quasi ju-
dicial tribunal but that it had never
been even seriously asserted that as
to subjects which in their nature
were administrative. power lay in the
courts to exercise original jurisdiction,
or to enforce their conceptions as to
rectly with the subject. irrespective
Of any prior affirmative action by the
commission.
Originally, he said. the courts felt
duty to pass on both questions of
law and of fact but by 1910 1t had
come to pass that in considering or
ders of the commission the courts
were limited to determining whether
the orders of the commission violated
tory authority or whether power had
been SO arbitrarily exercised by the
commission as virtually to transcend
the authority conferred. although 1t
Nigh tnot technically be doing SO. 1t
was this Jurisdiction, he declared. the
commerce court had inherited.
To adopt the view Of the COM
merce court as to it's Jurisdiction,
Chief Justice White said, would be to
overthrow the system of rate regula-
ton adopted by congress.
Senator Poindexter today intro
duced resolutio n to discharge the
committee on commerce from further
confederation Of the bill to abolish
the commerce court, in order to bring
the measure before the senate for q
vote. No action on the resolution
'as taken.