under the authority of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Most important of all was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890, to prevent combinations in restraint of trade." This has been followed by the recent Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. Acts have also been passed to prevent the interstate transportation of obscene literature, lottery tickets, game killed in violation of state laws, dairy and food products and drugs falsely labeled or branded and to prevent the carriage of liquor into territory which under state laws prohibits its sale or consumption. Interstate commerce has acquired a volume and importance never conceived by the authors of the Constitution. To-day interstate transactions comprise a very large proportion of the business of the country. Although the power to regulate commerce was granted chiefly as a means of protection against commercial hostilities and reprisals between the various states of the Union it remained practically dormant until comparatively recent years. It has, however, now come to be recognized as a most potent affirmative and constructive power constitutionally capable of effective development along many lines. Indeed it may be said to be the greatest power lodged in the national government, with almost unlimited possibilities of expansion in the constantly growing field of commercial and industrial intercourse. The latest decisions of the Supreme Court point to the conclusion that whenever the Federal authority is ready to undertake the entire regulation of transportation rates, it will have the power to do so, so closely interrelated are intrastate and interstate traffic. The signs point to a not distant date of unified control of the whole subject. 77 See among others: Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 194 U. S. 48, 48 L. Ed. 870, 24 Sup. Ct. 598; Harriman et al. v. Northern Securities Co., 197 U. S. 244, 49 L. Ed. 739, 25 Sup. Ct. 493; Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 55 L. Ed. 619, 31 Sup. Ct. 502; United States v. Reading Company, 226 U. S. 324, 57 L. Ed. 243, 33 Sup. Ct. 90. The Act to Regulate Commerce transport a tion Act. nies. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SEC. 1. (As amended June 29, 1906, April 13, Carriers and 1908, and June 18, 1910.) That the provisions of subject to the this Act shall apply to any corporation or any person or persons engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity, except water and except natural or artificial gas, by means of pipe lines, or partly by pipe lines and partly by railroad, or partly by pipe Telegraph lines and partly by water, and to telegraph, teletelephone, and cable compa-phone, and cable companies (whether wire or wireless) engaged in sending messages from one State, Territory, or District of the United States, to any other State, Territory, or District of the United States, or to any foreign country, who shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the meaning and purpose of this Act, and to any common carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad (or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment), from one State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or from one place in a Territory to another place in the same Territory, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States, and also to the transportation in like manner of property shipped from any place in the United States to a foreign country and carried from such place to a port of transshipment, or shipped from a foreign country to any place in the United States and carried to such Act does not apply to trans portation wholly within one state. place from a port of entry either in the United States or an adjacent foreign country: Provided, however, That the provisions of this Act shall not apply to the transportation of passengers or property, or to the receiving, delivering, storage, or handling of property wholly within one State and not shipped to or from a foreign country from or to any State or Territory as aforesaid, nor shall they apply to the transmission of messages by telephone, telegraph, or cable wholly within one State and not transmitted to or from a foreign country or to any State or Territory as aforesaid, The Purpose of the Act.-In order to comprehend the significance and the spirit of this Act we must know something of the purposes which inspired Congress to its enactment and as well some of the conditions which had theretofore prevailed and which it was anticipated this legislation would remedy. Its meaning becomes clearer if the purposes which it sought to accomplish are borne in mind and if the discrepancies which had come to attend the operation of the railroads are considered. Before the passage of the Act to Regulate Commerce railway traffic in the United States was regulated only under the general principles of common law applicable to common carriers, which at best provided that the railroads should carry for all persons who desired to make shipments, that goods should be shipped in the order of their delivery at the particular station of their initiation, and that the charges for the service of transportation should be reasonable. Although the weight of authority in this country favored the rule that charges must be equal to all persons for the same services it was at least doubtful whether the railroads were bound to this course and whether they might not charge one person more than another for either a similar or exactly the same service. The evils which were naturally incident to a policy of unrestricted competition accumulated and suggested the necessity of some measure of legislative control. In the words of the Supreme Court, "these evils ordinarily took the shape of inequality of charges made, or of facilities furnished, and were usually dictated by or tolerated for the promotion of the interests of the officers of the corporation or of the corporation itself, or for the benefit of some favored persons at the expense of others, or of some par ticular locality, or community, or of some local trade or commercial connection, or for the destruction or crippling of some rival or hostile line." In many of the different states acts had been passed by the Legislatures for the purpose of preventing such unreasonable and unjust discriminations. The inefficiency of these laws beyond the confines of the states because of constitutional limitations, the manifest impossibility of securing concerted action by all legislatures toward the regulation of traffic between and among the various states, and the growing abuses in railroad management and railroad transportation, all combined to demonstrate the necessity for legislation by Congress to control the problem under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several states. Similar legislation had been meanwhile adopted by the English Parliament and the English act furnished the basis for our Interstate Commerce Act. The history of the legislation, the language of the act, and the decisions of our own and the English courts, all show that the purpose of the act was to compel the railroads as common carriers and therefore as public agents to give equal treatment to all, to secure equality of rates for all shippers and to forbid undue and unreasonable preferences or discriminations and thus destroy favoritism, while at the same time seeking to prevent unjust and unreasonable rates.2 The various amendments to the Act have I Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 145 U. S. 263, 36 L. Ed. 699, 12 Sup. Ct. 844. 2 In Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 145 U. S. 263, 36 L. Ed. 699, 12 Sup. Ct. 844, the Supreme Court said: "The principal objects of the Interstate Commerce Act were to secure just and reasonable charges for transportation; to prohibit unjust discriminations in the rendition of like services under similar circumstances and conditions; to prevent undue or unreasonable preferences to persons, corporations or localities; to inhibit greater compensation for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line; and to abolish combinations for the pooling of freights. It was not designed, however, to prevent competition between different roads, or to interfere with the customary arrangements made by railway companies for reduced fares in consideration of increased mileage, where such reduction did not operate as an unjust discrimination against other persons traveling over the road." See also Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 52 L. Ed. 681, 28 Sup. Ct. 428; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway, 167 U. S. 479, 42 L. Ed. 243, 17 Sup. Ct. 896; New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. v. Inter been adopted in furtherance of these same objects and for the purpose of remedying abuses which have developed in spite of the legislation intended to prevent them. Intrastate Traffic Controlled by the States.—In the first place in matters of commerce which pertain only to the several states and whose operations are conducted within the confines of those states the Federal Constitution gives Congress no control or authority. In the field wherein the states are primarily concerned but where legislation or regulations may indirectly affect interstate commerce or communication between different states national legislation is supreme, but until such time as Congress does act the control remains vested in the states. The demand for federal legislation and the inspiration of the Act to Regulate Commerce of 1887 both arose from the fact that beyond the limits of state control there remained an enormous field of unregulated activity in the conduct of interstate transportation which could not otherwise be reached. In order, however, that there might be no question of the intended scope of its legislation and the regulation which it sought to enforce, Congress carefully defined the limitations of the act and expressly provided that it should not extend to purely intrastate traffic. This proviso of paragraph one of Section One thus declared the intention of Congress to exclude from the provisions of the act that transportation which is "wholly within one state," with the specified qualification where its subject was going to or coming from a foreign country or going to or coming from another state or territory. Thus the regulation and control of intrastate commerce and the fixing of rates for intrastate transportation were left by this act with the states and their agencies created to deal with the subject. Under the present state Commerce Commission, 200 U. S. 361, 50 L. Ed. 515, 26 Sup. Ct. 272; Southern Railway Co. v. Reid, 222 U. S. 424, 56 L. Ed. 257, 32 Sup. Ct. 140; Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 197, 40 L. Ed. 940, 16 Sup. Ct. 666. 3 Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352, 57 L. Ed. 1511, 33 Sup. Ct. 729. In the course of a lengthy and extremely comprehensive opinion, the court said: "The general principles governing the exercise of state authority when interstate commerce is affected are well established. The power of Congress to regulate commerce among the several states is supreme and plenary. * * * The reservation to the states manifestly is only of that authority which is consistent with and not opposed to the (constitutional) grant to Congress. There is no room in our scheme of govern |