Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1887 — THE INTERSTATE COMMISSION. [ARTICLE]

THE INTERSTATE COMMISSION.

The Interstate Commerce Commission on Thursday heard testimony upon the complaint of the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for alleged violation of the interstate law. Swift & Co. and Armour & Co., the Chicago packers, filed complaints of unjust discrimination and excessive charges with the Commission against the Eastern trunk lines. The unanimous decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission on the question of continuing the order suspending the operation of the long and short haul clause of the law over the different roads throughout the country that had applied and obtained temporary relief was made public on Thursday. The order for temporary relief made in favor of the Louisville and Nashville Road will be allowed to remain in force until the day originally limited for its expiration. Of the other applications for relief, coming from the transcontinental lines, from the Southern and Southwestern, Northera, Eastern and Western fines, forty-five in all, it is decided that the temporary orders which have been made in some of these petitions will, in like manner, be permitted to remain in force until the expiration of the time originally limited in each. No further order the Commission says, will be made upon any of the petitions, for although some two or three of the cases may not, by the facts recited in the applications for relief, be brought strictly within the principles discussed in the decision, yet they all present what are claimed to be different circumstances and conditions, adequate to authorize exceptions to the general rule; and if the petitioners are persuaded that the fact is as they represent, they should act under the statute accordingly. The Commission devotes considerable space to a discussion of the proper construction of the long and short clause of the act, and the duty of the Commission in affording relief to petitioners by suspending this provision of the law, and sums up its conclusion in the following language: The charging or receiving the greater compensation for the shorter than for the longer haul is forbidden only when both are under substantially similar circumstances and condition#, and therefore if in any case the carrier, without first obtaining an order of relief, shall depart from the general rule, its doing so will not alone convict it of illegality, since if the circumstance and conditions, of the two hauls are dissimilar the statute is not violated. Should an interested party dispute that the action of the carrier was warranted, an issue would be presented for adjudication, and the risks of that adjudication the carrier would necessarily assume. The latter clause in the same section, which empowers the Commission to make orders for relief in its discretion, does not in doing so restrict it to a finding of circumstances and conditions strictly dissimilar, but seems intended to give a discretionary authority for cases that could not be well indicated in advance by general designation, while the cases which upon tbeir face should be acted upon as clearly exceptional, would be left for adjudication when the action of the carrier was challenged. The statute becomes, on this construction, practical, and this section may be enforced without serious embarrassment.