Excerpt from Procedure in Interstate Commerce Cases: With Illustrative Precedents and Forms
The enactment, in 1887, of the original act to regulate commerce marked an epoch in the history of the Federal control over interstate and foreign commerce. The Congress had not theretofore passed any general legislation under the commerce clause of the Constitution, although the statute books contained certain provisions dependent thereon. Since that time, however, a number of statutes having various objects in view have been passed under the commerce power of the Constitution. The year 1887 may be taken as the beginning by the Federal Government of the supervision and control over rates of carriers engaged in interstate commerce.
The causes of complaint against the then existing railway management were many but they centered chiefly around what was called "discrimination," a term which has since had under judicial decisions a different meaning as used in the act to regulate commerce. The causes which led up to the passage of the act are referred to in Chapter I.
That many of these causes of complaint have been corrected by the original and supplemental acts must be admitted; some of the inequalities of that period and others, however, have continued. For the purpose of correcting these, other acts have been passed and the Interstate Commerce Commission has been made the governmental agency for the determination of questions relating to transportation, to supervise carriers, and for bringing about a correction of rates and practices, if in violation of the statute.
The Interstate Commerce Commission has consisted of earnest and conscientious men of high ability; it has striven, to the extent the act to regulate commerce would permit, to bring about a correction of the violations of the law, a better understanding of the rights of parties and to secure, in accordance with the duty imposed on it by section 21 of the act, information and data valuable in the determination of questions connected with the regulation of commerce and to recommend such additional legislation as it might deem proper. The Commission is, perhaps, constitutionally speaking, an anomalous body in our Federal organization, but the benefits wrought by it are apparent.
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