Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1909 — Injunction Will Limit Interstate Commerce Commission. [ARTICLE]

Injunction Will Limit Interstate Commerce Commission.

The United States Circuit Court for the district of northern Illinois Tuesday rendered an important decision that will have the effect of greatly limiting the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The commission had assumed the right not only to restrict the rates of railroads but also to establish a rate for them, and had ruled that a through rate ov&r two or more railroads should be less than the sum of the local rates. The decision is far reaching, and its general effect would be: 1. To prevent the commission from doing anything which partakes of "{lnitiative in the field of ratemaking. 2. To confine the commission’s jurisdiction over rates solely to the question of discrimination and of reasonableness, leaving policies as to ratemaking wholly within the control of the railroads, but circumscribed by the act.

3. To obviate the necessity of the railroads accepting less than their local rates for through shipments unless they decide of their own volition to do so. 4. To save the railroads millions in revenue by removing the necessity of an ultimate readjustment of the entire rate fabric of the country upon a lower basis than at present. 5. To prevent the commission from giving the seaboard manufacturers a great advantage over those in the territory between Chicago and Pittsburg and in the territory beyond the Missouri river.

The act of the commission if applied to a local concern would be to set a price at which a thing could be sold or a maximum figure that could be charged for any service. The injunction against the commission takes from it any part in rate making, but it may prosecute a railroad which has

charged an excessive rate. The decision does not' mean that a law of control can not be passed but that the present law does not delegate to the Interstate Commerce Commission the authority which it has assumed in rate making.