LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION, To the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES: Respectfully submitted. ERNEST I. LEWIS, Chairman. EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM To the Interstate Commerce Commission: Herewith I submit, as requested by the commission, a compilation of Federal laws relating to the regulation of carriers subject to the interstate commerce act, with annotations, tables, and indexes, prepared by me and by members of the staff of the commission under my direction, to be transmitted to the Senate of the United States in response to Senate Resolution No. 17 of December 6 (calendar day, December 9), 1927. The compilation and accompanying documents are generally self-explanatory. Attention may be directed to the following: 1. The text of the laws, with the division into titles, chapters, and sections, is that of the United States Code and its supplements, numbers I-III, inclusive. In footnotes to the sections and paragraphs appear statements as to the variations between the code and the original acts. Certain laws omitted from the code have been included in this compilation. 2. The responsibility for the performance of this undertaking must necessarily rest upon the commissioner in charge, and not upon his colleagues individually or upon the commission as a whole. The work has required an examination, page by page, of 280 volumes of decisions of the Supreme Court, 334 volumes of the Federal Reporter, 160 volumes of the commission's reports and of 42 volumes of its annual reports-more than 800 volumes-besides a search of decisions of other tribunals, such as the Court of Claims. The examination developed approximately 200,000 points, reduced by further examination to about 100,000 citation points, which, properly aggregated and grouped, are included in this compilation. More than 16,000 opinions of the courts and of the commission are cited. To bring this vast mass of material into reasonable compass and useful order has been possible only by liberal interpretation and condensation. The decisions of the commission deal largely with facts. In a large proportion of instances it has been necessary to attempt to deduce and to state the principle found or applied, because the act was applied or administered by the commission without a definite or quotable statement of the point of law decided. The digests, therefore, can not be literal. The statements of principles are guides to the underlying authorities, and not themselves authority. A table of the cases cited is appended. This is an unusual feature in an annotation of laws, although essential in digests and textbooks. It should prove of much convenience. For the sake of uniformity it has been necessary to depart from the usual rule of citation of decisions of the commission, i. e., to follow the right-hand folio title, and to cite according to the full official title of the cases, reduced to a common standard of style, abbreviated according to accepted current usage. 3. The undertaking is an annotation of the selected laws and not a digest of the opinions of the courts and of the commission. Decisions upon mere issues of fact, or which involved only discretion, or which were of a routine character are omitted, or else have been included only as illustrative. 4. The whole work has been constructed with the idea of permanence in arrangement, yet so as to be capable of future expansion within the scope of the present design, as new acts or amendments become effective, and with the growth in number of decisions. Each statute is arranged in its order as in the United States Code (except that for convenience title 49, Transportation, is lifted out of its order and has been placed first), and the code makes provision for insertion of additional sections and for the designation of amendments. Likewise, the annotations have been written around outlines so designed as to permit later insertion of additional topics without distortion of the present outline scheme. For this purpose gaps have been left in the consecutive numbering of the notes. Additional authorities upon any of the points embraced in the present outline will appear in supplements under the same note number as in this work. 5. Because of the time lag in publication it is impossible to bring out a work of this magnitude even approximately complete to the date of issue. The original work should be brought down to as late a date as possible by supplements which will cover the cases following the last volumes included in the annotations. 6. The West Publishing Co., of St. Paul, Minn., publisher of the Supreme Court Reporter and of the Federal Reporter, and the Banks Law Publishing Co., of New York City, N. Y., publisher of the early volumes of decisions of the Supreme Court, generously gave permission to use any literary copyrighted material contained in the publications named. While the endeavor has been to develop and include herein only original matter, some copyrighted material may have been reproduced. Accordingly, notice of copyright is given, and that the permission given by the West Publishing Co. and the Banks Law Publishing Co. for the use of the literary copyrighted material contained in the publications named does not authorize the publication by others than the United States Government of such material without the direct consent of the copyright proprietors. Valuable assistance and advice given by the West Publishing Co., Edward Thompson Co., and Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Co. have greatly facilitated the undertaking. 7. Many members of the commission's staff have participated to greater or less extent in the preparation of this response to the Senate, and to them individually acknowledgment of full appreciation is made for their industry and skill in a long and detailed task. Respectfully submitted. DECEMBER 31, 1929. CLYDE B. AITCHISON, Commissioner. |