The Sentinel=record., 1914-06-23

 RATE: SUSTAINED
SUPREME COURT HOLDS LONG AND SHORT HAUL CLAUSE
 CONSTITUTIONAL.
Opposition to Five Per Cent Increase Rate in Freight Rates Being Asked by Eastern Railroads.

Washington, D. C., June 22.-The Interstate Commerce Commission so-called inter-mountain rate orders were sustained as valid today by the supreme court, which held at the same time that the long and short haul clause of the interstate com merce law was constitutional. Both had been attacked by trans-conti- mental railroads.
 The defunct commerce court, pass ing over the constitutional question, had annulled the orders on the ground that the commission had no author ity to issue blanket" or zone" or ders and might act only on the req condolences of the specific rates. In overturning that contention today not have that power, the supreme court decided a point lawyers and close observers of the Interstate Commerce Commissions procedure say is of equal importance to the in- ter-mountain rate case itself-if not greater.
 Opposition to the per cent in crease rate in freight rates being asked by the eastern railroads and on which the Interstate Commerce Commission is expected to announce it's decision any day-had been based principally on the contention that the commission did not have authority under the law to grant such plan ket' increase.
 What the effect-if any-of the de- clsion in the rate case may be only can be subject to conjecture. Some among the we'll informed in the com missions procedure, however, say the decision in the disposition of the rail roads application has been delayed awaiting the supreme courts decision on that point.
 As to the intermountain rate or ders themselves, however, their ef- feet is that western cities will not be forced to pay on their freight from the east the regular rate through to other rate from the Pacific coast back to their stations. They will be forced, however, to pay certain increases over normal rates froc retain zones.
 As a result of the decision, all dis cussion is removed as to the commits sion's right to pass on the reasonable ness of a lower rate for haul to a more distant city than to a nearer one in the same direction. It recog- nizes the commissions power to fix such rates by zones as distinguished from taking up the conditions sur rounding each point of shipment in the United States.
 Chief Justice White announced the unanimous decision of the court. He said the case turned largely on the construction and validity of the long and short haul clause in the fourth section of the interstate commerce act as amended in 1910, and which transferred from the railroads to the commission the power hitherto re- posed by congress in the railroads to determine what exemptions had been made from the general prohibition against charging less for a long haul than for a short haul. He said if it were valid for congress to allow the railroads to exercise the power, 1t was valid for congress to let the com mission exercise it.
 After all has been said,' con- tinued Justice White, the provisions while in, of course, a certain latitude of judgment and discretion, are no more underlined and uncertain since amended than they have been from the beginning"