Court Opinion

ID: 9418782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:39:20.45604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:10.197831
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Stone,
dissenting.
The Interstate Commerce Commission, acting under § 3 (1) and § 15 (1), of the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by Transportation Act, 1920, 41 Stat. 456, after extensive investigation, has found that the rates of rail carriers on commodities moving in import, export and coastwise transportation from or to points in Texas, Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and in Louisiana west of the Mississippi River were unduly prejudicial to Galveston and other Texas gulf ports and unduly preferential of New Orleans. Its order, framed to restrict, but not to remove entirely the discrimination, sustained by the District Court of three judges below, is now held void and set aside by this Court. I think that the order is within the competency of the Commission, is supported by the evidence, and should in all respects be upheld.
Stated, generally, the discrimination complained of is the maintenance of rates by the rail carriers which give no recognition to the proximity of Galveston and other Texas ports to the interior points involved. The rates thus deprive the Texas ports of the natural advantage of their geographical position over that of a rival port, New Orleans; and as the commercial advantages of-New Orleans exceed those of the Texas ports, the rates result in the diversion of traffic to the former from territory normally tributary to the latter. The Commission found that although the length of haul from the interior shipping *656points to the Texas ports is less than that to New Orleans, the differencé varying from 162 to 213 miles from typical points,1 the carriers have long maintained the same, and in many instances substantially lower rates to New Orleans. In territory nearer to New Orleans than to the Texas ports, the lesser service has, on the other hand, been given recognition by correspondingly lower rates. The Commission has found, and it is not questioned, that transportation costs and conditions throughout the southwest territory are substantially the same; that the rates established by the carriers disregard generally and materially the amounts and costs of service; that the discrimination has deprived' and will continue to deprive the Texas ports of the natural advantage of their more favorable geographical position, and has resulted and will continue to result in building up the port of New Orleans to their detriment and at their expense. The order assailed seeks to curtail this discrimination and the injury which it inflicts. It leaves undisturbed the lower rates ,in force to New Orleans from points nearer that city than Galveston and permits parity of rates where the distance to New Orleans does not exceed that to Galveston by more than 25%, but for differences in distance exceeding 25%. it has named minimum differentials under the rates maintained to New Orleans.
In holding that the Commission is without power to make the order, the Court does not deny that a discrimination which is produced by charging equal rates, for unequal service is- prohibited by the statute as much as one resulting from unequal rates for equal service. Compare The Shreveport Case, 234 U.S. 342, 346. • Nor does' the Court consider material, in this respect, the findings *657of the Commission that the rates to Texas ports and New Orleans are both reasonable to shippers, in that the former are not too high, or the latter so low as to cast a burden on other traffic. For it is not denied that the Commission may remove a discrimination effected by rates which are within the zone of reasonableness if the discrimination is one forbidden by § 3 (1) of the Act. American Express Co. v. Caldwell, 244 U.S. 617; United States v. Illinois Central Ry. Co., 263 U.S. 515, 524. It is not suggested that a discrimination effected by reasonable rates may not result in gross injury to the locality discriminated against; and the opinion does not question the correctness of the findings here that such injury is inflicted on the Texas ports by the prohibited rates. The issue is thus narrowed to two' questions, first, whether the acts of Congress giving broad powers to the Commission to remove discriminations resulting in undue or unreasonable prejudice to a “ locality,” have conferred any power on the Commission to curtail an unduly prejudicial discrimination agaiffst a port, and second, whether, assuming that the Corfimission has such power, it may order the removal of the discrimination by the appellant .carriers who participate in the discriminatory rates, although their rails reach only New Orleans, and not the Texas ports.
First. The Court holds that this power is lacking because the locality injured by the discrimination, a port, is neither .the origin nor the ultimate destination of the traffic involved, but a gateway through which it passes, albeit it is arrested there pending its transshipment upon a new and independent contract for ocean transportation. It is said that a gateway is not a “ locality ” within the meaning of the Act because it was never intended that the statute should forbid discrimination against localities which are not points of origin or ultimate destination, however unreasonable and unjust the discrimination may be.
*658The words of the statute neither state nor suggest such an exception.
Section 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act declares: “It shall be unlawful for any common carrier ... to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation or locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever, or to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation or locality, or any particular description of traffic to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever.”
Section 15 (1) gives to the Commission plenary power to remove any such “ unjustly discriminatory or unduly preferential ” individual or joint rate, by ordering the carrier or carriers to cease and desist from the violation, and by prescribing a just and reasonable individual or joint rate to be observed by the carrier or carriers concerned. On its face the prohibition of any undue and unreasonable prejudice to “any particular locality,” “in any respect whatsoever,” would seem so plainly to include a port as to leave no room for construction. Compare United States v. Shreveport Grain & Elevator Co., 287 U.S. 77; Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55; Van Camp & Sons v. American Can Co., 278 U.S. 245, 253.
I can find nothing in the purpose or history of the statute which suggests that it means any less than it says. This Court has often declared that the purpose of the all-embracing language of the statute was to suppress every form of unreasonable discrimination which it was within the power of Congress to condemn. Merchants Warehouse Co. v. United States, 283 U.S. 501, 512; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 740, 749-750; The Shreveport Case, supra, 356; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U.S. 467. It has said that discriminatioi was the principal thing aimed at and “ the *659purpose of Congress was to cut up by the roots every form of discrimination, favoritism and inequality.” Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, supra, 478.
Statutory language so unambiguous and a purpose so comprehensive do not readily yield to the conclusion that a locality which is a port is not a “ locality ” within the meaning' of the Act. The bare fact that a port is a gateway and not the ultimate destination of the traffic, does not support that conclusion, for the commercial interests of a port, always of great magnitude, may suffer the same destruction from discriminatory rates as do shippers or other industrial interests at points of origin or destination. A. rate structure which diverts from one port to another a portion of the ocean-borne traffic, which would otherwise naturally pass through the former, sufficient to destroy the business of banks, marine insurance companies, freight forwarders, freight and ship brokers, stevedores, tonnage, companies, pilots, dry docks, ship supply and bunker coal merchants, customs brokers, export and import commission houses, centered there, would seem to have an effect upon the commerce and general welfare of the country of precisely the kind which the act was intended to prohibit and the Commission empowered to prevent. So the Commission has concluded in a series of cases dealing with discrimination against ports, going back to the first years of its existence. See N. Y. Produce Exch. v. B. & O. R. Co., 7 I.C.C. 612, 658, 660; In re Export and Domestic Rates, 8 I.C.C. 214; In re Differential Rates, 11 I.C.C. 13; Chamber of Commerce of N.Y. v. New York Central, 24 I.C.C. 55, 27 I.C.C. 238; Astoria v. S. P. & S. R. Co., 38 I.C.C. 16; In re Import Rates, 24 I.C.C. 78; New York Harbor Case, 47 I.C.C. 643; Mobile Chamber of Commerce v. Mobile & O. R. Co., 57 I.C.C. 554; Coffee from Galveston and other Gulf Ports, 58 I.C.C. 716; 64 I.C.C. 26; Charleston Traffic Bureau v. Ala. & *660G. S. R. Co., 89 I.C.C. 501; Maritime Assn. of Boston v. Ann Arbor R. Co., 95 I.C.C. 539; Oswego v. B. & O. R. Co., 151 I.C.C. 717.
This administrative practice and construction cannot be dismissed with the observation that where “ a statutory body has assumed a power plainly not granted no amount of such interpretation is binding upon the court,” for the question obviously is whether or not a power was granted which the language of the statute plainly embraces and which certainly was not plainly denied. In determining that question when the meaning of the statute is doubtful on its face, we have often said that administrative construction is of persuasive force, see United States v. Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee R. Co., 288 U.S. 1; N.Y., N.H. & H.R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 200 U.S. 361, 401, particularly where, as here, the statute has been frequently amended and the provision relied upon retained in identical form. Compare Brewster v. Gage, 280 U.S. 327, 336; National Lead Co. v. United States, 252 U.S. 140, 147. This construction certainly cannot be summarily disregarded in favor of another which departs both from the plain meaning of the words and from the policy which has hitherto been thought to have, inspired their use. ■
To support such a departure it is said that as the railroads, before the enactment of the statute, had in some instances attempted to equalize competing ports by setting up a rate structure which did not conform wholly to the carrier service involved, and as Congress, in the Interstate Commerce Act evinced no intention to prevent competition for business between sail carriers, it could not have intended by this legislation forbidding discrimination prejudicial to localities to forbid discriminations between rival ports, however unreasonable and injurious.
The port differentials and equalizations maintained prior to the passage of the original act, in order to secure *661a fair distribution of traffic among the Atlantic ports and the carriers serving them, were very different in quality and prejudicial effect upon the localities concerned from the rate structure resulting in the discrimination disclosed here.2 The existence of those equalizations before 1887 and the fact that in some instances since that date they have been regarded as innocuous even by the Commission itself, can hardly lend support to the supposition that the statute was not intended to forbid destructive discriminations in that form as well as in any other. The argument seems to be that the statute cannot be deemed to forbid unjust discriminations against ports since if it did aff rates to competing ports not measured by mileage or, carrier service would be forbidden whether unjust or not. With equal plausibility it was argued that because competition between carriers was an established practice before the enactment of § 3 and is not forbidden by the Act, no discrimination induced by carrier competition was forbidden. But that construction was rejected by this Court, Wight v. United States, 167 U.S. 512, 517; United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra; Merchants Warehouse Co. v. United States, supra, for the same reason that the present construction should be rejected — that although carrier competition was not destroyed by the Interstate Commerce Act, it was limited by the prohibition of § 3 of those discriminations which, in the light of all the circumstances, are found to be undue or unreasonable.
*662The statute does not purport to prohibit all discriminations. It reaches only those against either localities or shippers which result in prejudice which is “ undue or unreasonable.” Cf. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. v. Tennessee, 262 U.S. 318, 322. Hence, in determining whether a discrimination involved in a port equalization is “ undue or unreasonable,” competition is a factor which may not be ignored (see Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Alabama Midland Ry., 168 U.S. 144, 170); the Commission is not to leave out of account either past history or practical experience, or the effect of the discrimination on the ports concerned. But even though the exigencies of competition may be entitled to greater consideration in a case of discrimination between ports than in one of discrimination between shippers, the weight which is given to it and to the other relevant facts, in determining whether the discrimination is so unjust as to be forbidden, does not go to the Commission’s power but to the propriety of it's exercise. United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, 525; Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Alabama Midland Ry., supra. That the Commission so conceives its powers and function in considering a rate adjustment equalizing ports, is apparent from its statement of the problem in the present case:
“ Such an adjustment necessarily disregards distance and commercial instead of natural advantages control. Wé have consistently refused to condemn such an adjustment where it is shown to serve the best interests of the public, but where, as here, it builds up one port at the expense of another equally favored by natural advantages from the origin territory here considered, a line must be found beyond which distance may not be disregarded.”
This language of the Commission appears to me to suggest the only reasonable interpretation of the statute consonant with its language, its history and its background. The statute does not command or the Commission’s order *663direct that the rates shall be measured exclusively by mileagb or carrier service; carrier competition for business passing through gateways or elsewhere is not forbidden; but when the discrimination goes so far beyond;' the line of reasonableness as to result in the commercial destruction of a locality, the Commission may declare it “undue or unreasonable” and, therefore, forbidden by the statute, whether aimed at ports or points of shipment or destination. Nothing that this Court has ever said is inconsistent with this conclusion. The legislative history of the statute seems to support, rather than to deny it.
Close scrutiny of the legislative history of the original act and of the Hepburn Amendment fails to disclose any intention to except from the forbidden discriminations ¿gainst localities, undue or unreasonable discriminations against ports. Senator Cullom, who was in charge of the earlier bill, made no reference to the present question in his explanatory statement,3 cited in the opinion of the *664Court,4 and none is to be found in the House proceedings to which reference is also made.5 Senator Cullom emphasized the fact that the discriminations forbidden included those against .localities and nowhere suggested any exceptions. Mention in the Report of the Senate Committee of the investigation of a committee of the British Parliament and the quotation of its conclusions,6 are without significance here. Those conclusions were not endorsed by the Senate Committee and did not deal with undue discriminations produced by railroad competition. It is true that in the debates in Congress on the Hepburn Amendment it was pointed out in several instances that the bill did not confer on the Commission the general *665power to fix differentials to ports' or to any other points,7 but it was also pointed out that “ Section 3 of the original act applies just the same. We have not undertaken to amend, limit, or extend Section 3. Whatever is unjust and discriminatory under Section 3 is unjust under the provisions of this bill and such will be prohibited . . .”8 Moreover the basis for this want of power to fix differentials was not that a port is not a “ locality ” within the meaning of § 3, but that differential rates on different roads cannot be fully controlled without the fixing of a minimum rate.9 And it was recognized in the decisions of *666this Court prior to the enactment of. Transportation Act, 1920, conferring the power to fix minimum rates, that urn-just discriminations produced' by the relation of rates charged or participated in. by the same carrier might be forbidden by the Commission; by Towering the-higher rate, (compare St. Lewis S. W. Ry.. Co. v. United States, 245 U.S. 136, 144). or by an order which left the carrier free to raise-or continue the lower rate; “the compulsion being that if the lbw rate is; retained the rate applicable to the locality or article discriminated against must be reduced.” Skinner & Eddy Corp. v. United States, 249 U.S. 557, 566.
Second. The Court also holds that even if a port is a “locality” within the meaning of the statute, and prejudicial discriminations against it are forbidden, still the Commission is without power to order the Texas & Pacific RJt. Co. and the Louisiana Railroad & Navigation Cona*667pany to remove the discrimination. Both these lines reach New Orleans with their own rails and both participate in through rates and a full line of joint rates between local and junction points on their own lines and the Texas ports. They thus control the rate to New Orleans and are parties to rates to the Texas ports and to the prejudicial discrimination. Nevertheless, it is said that the Commission is without power to make an order removing the discrimination which does not afford to the carriers an alternative method of removing it, either by lowering the rates to the Texas ports or raising those to New Orleans, and that the present order does not afford such an alternative because of the appellants’ inability to control the rates to the. Texas ports.
The Commission may, in directing the removal of a discriminatory rate or practice, not otherwise objection*668able, allow to the carrier a choice of methods of removing the discrimination by the modification of one rate or practice or the other. By the present order the two carriers are left , free to remove the discrimination-.by raising the New Orleans rate which they control, or by entering into lower joint or through rates with the connecting carriers to the Texas ports — a latitude which may serve the interest of the carriers better than would an order specifically directing them to raise the New Orleans, rates. Beyond question these roads can remove the discrimination by raising; the New Orleans rates and it neither appears, nor is it argued, that they cannot remove it by lowering the rates to the Texas ports, by agreement with their connecting carriers or, in default of agreement, by reducing their own. division and securing a corresponding reduction of the joint rate on application to the Commission under § 15 (6). See St. Louis Southwestern R. Co. v. United States, 245 U.S. 136, 139, note 2; compare United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, 521.
But the statute does not compel the Commission to afford such an alternative or permit an offending carrier to avoid its salutary provisions merely for the reason that, although participating in both the offending rates, it can with certainty control only one. It is true that in cases arising before the enactment of Transportation Act, 1920, by which power was given to the Commission to fix a minimum rate, it could not remove a discrimination by prescribing a minimum rate to one of the competing localities. But it could remove the discrimination by imposing a lower maximum rate, even though a joint rate participated in by the carrier whose rails did not reach the locality discriminated against, (compare St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. United States, supra) or, as already mentioned, it could leave the carriers free to remove the discrimination by raising one or lowering the other. See American Express Co. v. Caldwell, supra, 624; United *669States v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 266 U.S. 191. And now that the Commission has power under § 15 (1) to fix a minimum rate it may equally command the removal of the discrimination by directing a rate to be raised, just as where the carrier maintains discriminatory practices •the Commission may direct the modification of one and not the other, and is not bound to allow the carrier a choice. Merchants Warehouse Co. v. United States, supra, 513; New York, New Haven & Hartford R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, supra, 404. The fact that the Commission has given to the carrier an option to remove the discrimination by arrangement with the connecting carriers, through which the traffic reaches the Texas ports, does not afford to the carrier any ground for complaint or impair the power of the Commission to make the order.
The situation here appears to be identical with that presented to this Court in United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, and in St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. United States, supra. In both cases the carriers’ rails reached one of the competing points only through its connections. In the first the order leaving the carrier free to remove the discrimination by raising one rate or lowering the other, and in the second an order requiring the carrier to remove the discrimination by establishing a lower joint rate with its connections, was upheld by this Court. In St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. United States, this Court said, page 144:
“ Carriers insist also that the order is void on the ground that, since their ‘ rails do not reach Paducah, they cannot be guilty of discrimination against that city.’ They, however, bill traffic via Cairo or Memphis through to Paducah in connection with the Illinois Central, thus reaching Paducah, although not on their own rails. And, thereby, they become effective instruments of discrimination. Localities require protection as much from combinations of connecting carriers as from, single carriers whose ‘ rails ’ *670reach them. Clearly the power of Congress and of the Commission to prevent interstate carriers from practicing discrimination against a particular locality is not confined to those whose rails enter it.”
The judgment should be affirmed.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Brandéis and Mr. Justice Cardozo concur in' this opinion.

 The distances range from 162 miles from typical points in southern Kansas and 174 miles from typical points in Oklahoma to 213 miles from typical points in northern Texas. Waco is 233, Dallas 291/ and Fort Worth 308 miles nearer Galveston than New Orleans.

 differentials were adopted by voluntary agreement of the' carriers to eliminate competitive rate wars, ruinous to the railroads, and to the localities concerned. Their effect was to preserve rather than to destroy a fair distribution of the traffic from the west to the Atlantic Seaboard. See John B. Daish, Atlantic Port Differentials (1918); Preferential Transportation Rates, Report of the United States Tariff Commission, 1922, p. 279; cf. Commissioner Prouty, In the Matter of Differential Rates, 111.C.C. 13, 61 ff. and the briefs in the same case reprinted in the appendix to the hearings on the Hepburn Amendment before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce (1905), Vol. V, p. 407.

 With respect to § 3, Senator Cullom said: “The third section . . . contains a general prohibition of every variety of unjust discrimination. The section covers two subjects. The first paragraph prohibits the giving of any undue or unreasonable preference to any particular person or locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatever, and declares such a preference unlawful. . . . This covers in general terms, though by no means so completely, the provision of section 2 as to discriminations against persons, but goes further and includes discriminations against localities or particular descriptions of traffic. The language adopted in this paragraph is substantially that of the English statute on the subject which has been repeatedly construed by the English courts, so that its meaning has already been judicially established . . .” (Cong. Rec., 49th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 17, p. 3472). It may not be without significance that the English antecedents of § 3, The Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1854 (17 & 18 Viet., c. 31, § 2) and the Act of 1873, amending it (36 &’ 37 Viet., c. 48, § 11) failed to include preference of localities.
See also Senator Cullom’s final answer to Senator Hoar’s question whether the effect of § 4 of the proposed act, prohibiting the charging *664of more for a shorter than a longer distance over the same line under substantially similar conditions, would not eliminate port differentials, then in existence, favoring Boston: "... if we are going to regulate these corporations at all, if wé are going to stop'unjusUdiscriminations and the secret rebates by which towns are built up and towns are destroyed, by which individuals ar,e destroyed. and individuals are built up, we must have something in the bill which will mean something, or else we might as well lay the bill on the table and go at' other' business.” (Cong. Rec., 49th Cong., 2d Sess., vol. 18, pp. 485, 486.) Compare his statement in discussing the. conference report: “ It has been said over and over again here that the railroad companiés would build up one man and crush another; that their policy has been to destroy one locality or city and build up another.' Here we have undertaken to so regulate them as to prevent them from doing those things so far as we can do so.” (Cong. Rec., 49th Cong., 2d Sess., vol. 18, p. 660.)

 See the opinion of the Court, note 18.

 See Cong. Rec., 49th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 17, pp. 7277, 7294, 7298.

 Report No. 46, 49th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 57. Comparé the Committee’s statement of the fundamental theory and purpose of the bill (p. 215): “ The provisions of the bill are based upon the theory that the paramount evil chargeable against the operation of the transportation systems of the United States as now conducted is unjust discrimination between persons, places, commodities, or particular descriptions of traffic. The underlying purpose and aim of the measure is the prevention of these discriminations. ...”

 See Cong. Ree., 59th Cong., 1st Sess,,\vol. 40, pp. 1788, 2084-5, 2247, 2248, 3792, 6683.

 For the full quotation, see note 9, infra.

Compare the statement of Mr. Stevens, a member of the House Committee: “My people are just as much interested that- there should not be any undue control of differential rates. . . -. But it vis just as clear to us and to the whole committee that there is no such power in this bill. . . . The situation presented by the bill and the reasons why differentials are not covered are very "simple. Under this bill the Commission would have authority to fix what, in its judgment, would be a just, reasonable, and fairly remunerative rate or rates as the maximum to be charged. It would have no authority to fix an absolute rate, which must be observed by the carrier, and no authority to fix a minimum rate, below which the carrier cannot go; and a preferential cannot ,,be controlled without there is authority to control absolutely both legs of the differential. In this case the - Commission cannot control either. It must fix a rate which shall be just and reasonable and fairly remunerative as the maximum to be charged. This leaves the carrier to charge anything it pleases below the maximum. And since there is no power to fix any absolute rate and no minimum rate, there is no power in the Commission to control the relation of rates, and so no power to control the differential.” Mr. Olmsted then asked whether “under this bill the railroads may make as many unjust discriminations as they please and the Commission would be powerless to correct them.” Mr. Stevens answered: “Oh, no; . . . Section 3 of the original act applies just the same. We have not undertaken to amend, limit, or extend section 3. Whatever is unjust and discriminatory under sec*666tion 3 is unjust under the provisions of this bill, and such will be prohibited; but we will not allow the making of a minimum or absolute rate, which is the only adequate way of controlling a differential.” Cong. Rec., vol. 40, p. 2085. It does not appear that Mr. Mann’s statement (Cong. Rec., vol. 40, p. 2247) quoted by the Court (note 20) was intended to have any different meaning. Indeed his reference to ports and to “ cities ” would seem to indicate that he did not believe that ports were in any different position with reference to differentials than points of origin or destination. See also Cong. Rec., vol. 40, p. 3792, and compare the remarks of Senator Lodge, Cong. Ree., vol. 40, p. 4111, which indicate, if anything, his belief that the differentials between Boston and other Atlantic ports were within the control of the Commission.
It was also pointed out that relative rates on different roads were not within the control of the Commission. In discussing differentials, Senator Raynor pointed out that the provisions of the bill “are limited to discriminations upon the same roads. The words ‘unjustly discriminatory ’ or ‘ unduly preferential ’ or ‘ prejudicial ’ apply to rates and regulations and practices upon the same road, because there can be no such thing as an unjust discrimination or an undue preference between different roads supplying different territory and terminating at different points. ... If one road charges an un*667reasonable rate or a discriminating rate, that would surely not justify the Commission’s adjusting the rate between this road and some other road that has no connection with it by law or privity of cow-tract. . . .” (Cong. Rec., vol. 40, p. 6683.) Read in the light of this statement, there is nothing to support the conclusion of the Court in the other statement of Senator Raynor referred to in the opinion (note 20) that there is no “power whatever in the Commission to adjust relative rates and strike the proper proportions between them. The ports of the United States, therefore, are not within the jurisdiction of the Hepburn Act. If there is a differential between different ports upon different lines of railroads, there is no provision in this measure that invests the Commission with the right to change it. It has a perfect right, of course, where discrimination exists upon the same line, as if a rate to an inland point compared with a rate to a terminal point is unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory, to prescribe a maximum rate; but it has no right to bring competitive roads struggling for competitive markets within its jurisdiction, and I deny in its entirety the proposition that the Commission could by any. exercise of its power, direct or inferential, take away from any railroad its right to charge its own rates, unless the rate is unreasonable or unduly preferential or discriminatory upon its own line.” (Cong. Rec., vol. 40, p, 3792.)