The Washington times., 1912-07-27
EMAscULATINc THE INTERSTATE COM
MERGE LAW.

The bills in Congress which look to broadening
the powers of review which the courts shall possess
over decisions Of the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion, are all bad; some are worse than others. To
pass any one OF them would be to injure seriously
the present interstate commerce CODE to pass some
would be to destroy all that has been achieved in
twenty-five years Of painful and patient building.
Disguise it as gentlemen may with sophistcal
explanations the fact is that these bills look to de-
stroying the Interstate Commissions authority and
substituting the discretion OF the courts-and OF the
Court of Commerce, at that-for the commissions
discretion. The great basic elemental controversy
when the Dollver act Of 1906 passed. was whether
the commission or the court should make the ulh-
mate decision. Congress wisely decided to give the
commission every ota Of final authority that it could
exercise consttutionay. II made the commission
arm of Congress, authorized to do anything that
Congress itself could do by law ,.
Congress could, for instance, by law, make rates
but it could not make and enforce confscaory rate
because that would violate the Constitution So the
commission, obviously, cannot do more than Con-
gress could do. But 1t do, within the limits set
by the law, whatever Congress could do
The railroads wanted the largest, most inclusive
court review; they wanted, in brief, that the real
discretion the actual authority should be vested in
the courts, not the commission. They lost But
then they got the Commerce Court created and i
has held that it had very much wider powers Of
view than the commission has conceded or Congress
intended.
On appeal to the Supreme Court, this contention
of the Commerce Court has been rejected. The
commission has been sustained, the law has been
protected in its original intent.
Now comes the railroads, with an effort to WRITE
INTO THE LAW the very proposition that the Com.
merce Court laid down and that the Supreme Court
rejected That is the substance Of the whole thing
1t is monstrous proposal for it would undo all tina,
has been accomplished. When this proposal was laid
before the Supreme Court it rendered UNAN
IMOUS OPINION that Congress did not give the
courts any such extensive powers of review. Mr.
Chief Justice White wrote the opinion and is com
pletey clarifying to this point. 1t applies to the
pending measures in Congress quite we'll to the
Commerce Court decision which it reversed, for both
undertake to do the same thing that is to take away
all final discretion from the commission This is wha
Chief Justice White said:
Y To give to the statute a meaning contrary to tina
which have found results from its text and therefore
to recognize the existence in the court below OF tn
power which it deemed 1t possessed would result II
frustrating the legislative public policy which led
the adoption of the Act to Regulate Congress- would rem
der impossible resort to the remedies which the staut
enacted to AFFORD would multiply evils which tn
adopted to prevent and thus bring about disas
ter by creating confusion and conflict where clearnes
and unity of action was contemplated.
The Chief Justice was completely right. To pas
these bills, or any of them, would be unmixe
disaster to the public interest and to the public polio
now thoroughly established, of effective regulation
through the commission.
Whether these bills represent deliberate faI
reaching plot to break down the act to regulate com
merce, or whether they merely testify to the ignol
ance and crudity OF wouldbe statesmen, the conclu
sion must be the same.
4 These bills must be killed. To pass any one Q
them would be legislative scandal of the irst orde