intrusted to them according to the requirements of law. On the contrary, such administrators would find that a uniform system of accounts would be of great assistance in such a management of railway property, as well as meet the requirements of public justice and serve, in the highest degree possible, the interests of the investor.

The general conclusion from the above discussion, which from the nature of the case has been cursory and incomplete, is that a uniform system of accounts under public supervision would be of great advantage, first, to the public, in that it would assist in the enforcement of the law; second, to the investor, in that it would assist in securing to him the full earnings of his property; and third, to those officials of railway corporations who desire to administer the property intrusted to them honestly and in harmony with the law. The Commission, therefore, does not hesitate to urge strongly upon Congress the necessity of taking such steps as are necessary to the realization of an efficient system of supervision over railway accounts.

GOVERNMENT-AIDED RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH LINES.

In performance of the duty imposed upon the Commission in regard to Government-aided railroad and telegraph lines, act of August 7, 1888, the Commission sent blanks for the purpose of making annual reports to the following companies: The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad Company, the St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the United States Telegraph Company, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company, the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, the Oregon and California Railroad Company, the Southern Pacific Company, the Union Pacific Railway Company, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company.

With the exception of the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company, none of the above-mentioned companies have filed the information required. The Attorney-General has been notified of the failure on the part of these companies to comply with

the law.

The provisions of this act require all railroad and telegraph companies to which the United States has granted any subsidy in lands or bonds or loan of credit for the construction of either railroad or telegraph lines, and which by law are required to construct, maintain, or operate telegraph lines, to forthwith and henceforward, by and through their own respective corporate officers and employees, to maintain and operate, for railroad, governmental, commercial, and all other purposes, telegraph lines, and exercise by themselves alone all the telegraphic franchises conferred upon them and obligations assumed by them under the acts making the grants of Government aid.

The second section provides for the connection with these telegraph lines of the line of any telegraph company which shall have accepted the provisions of Title LXV of the Revised Statutes, and for the affording of equal facilities to all such connecting telegraph lines for the interchange of business without discrimination, and upon fair and equitable terms.

The third section provides for complaints to the Interstate Commerce Commission of any failure or refusal on the part of such Governmentaided railroad or telegraph lines to observe the foregoing requirements for interchange of business. The Commission is authorized to determine and order what arrangement is proper to be made in the particular case, and the railroad or telegraph company concerned is required to abide by and perform such order, and the order may be enforced by mandamus in the courts of the United States. The Commission is also authorized to institute any inquiry upon its own motion in the same manner and to the same effect as if complaint had been made.

Under the fourth section the Attorney-General is required to bring all proper proceedings to prevent any unlawful interference with the rights and equities of the United States under any law of Congress relating to such railroad and telegraph lines, and to have legally ascertained and finally adjudicated all alleged rights of all persons and corporations claiming, in any manner, any control, or interest of any kind in any telegraph line or property, or exclusive rights of way upon the lands of said railroad companies, or any of them, and to have all contracts and provisions of contracts set aside and annulled which have been unlawfully and beyond their powers entered into by such railroad or telegraph companies.

The fifth section makes it a misdemeanor for any officer or agent of said railroad or telegraph companies, or any company operating the railroads or telegraphs of said companies, to bring about any violation of the provisions of this law, or to refuse to abide by or perform and carry out within a reasonable time the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the penalty being a fine of not exceeding $1,000. Any person so convicted may also be imprisoned for not less than six months. Aggrieved parties are also given a right of action for damages against the company whose officer or agent may be guilty of such failure or refusal.

The sixth section provides for reports to the Commission by the railroad and telegraph companies referred to in the first section of the statute.

Suit having been brought by the United States against the Union Pacific Railway Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company under the authority of this act of August 7, 1888, to compel compliance by the Union Pacific Railway Company with the provisions of such act, and for the annulment of certain agreements between that company and the Western Union Telegraph Company entered into on October 1,

1866, September 1, 1869, December 14, 1871, and July 1, 1881, said agreements were, by a decree of the United States circuit court for the district of Nebraska, on October 11, 1892, annulled and held for naught. The Union Pacific Railway Company was also required under this decree to at once put an end to all relations between it and the defendant, the Western Union Telegraph Company, not equally allowed to all other persons or corporations operating, owning, or using the telegraph as a means of communication, and also to at once resume possession of its offices, poles, wires, instruments, and all its other property belonging or appertaining to the business of telegraphy along such of its main and branch lines as were aided by the Government under the act of July 1, 1892, and acts amendatory and supplemental thereto, and henceforth, by and through its own corporate officers and employees, to maintain and operate, for railroad, governmental, commercial, and other purposes, such telegraphic lines and instruments, and in all ways exercise by itself alone all the telegraph franchises conferred upon it under the several acts granting subsidies in lands or bonds or loan of credit to it and to its constituent companies, or the acts amendatory of or supplemental thereto.

The railway company was also required to provide facilities for the interchange of business with connecting telegraph lines, and all companies desiring to make connections, without discrimination for or against any one of such connecting lines, and upon just and equitable terms. The Western Union Telegraph Company was directed under this decree to at once vacate all the offices of said railway company without interference or damage to the same, and without removing, until the further order of the court, any property therefrom or from the line of said railway company which had theretofore been jointly used by the two companies, or the ownership of which is in dispute or is so connected with or mixed with the property of the railway company as to make it difficult of identification, or the removal of which will interrupt or interfere with the discharge of the duties of the defendant railway company; but it was provided that the decree should not be construed as preventing the railroad company from leasing to the telegraph company the right to occupy with its wires, instruments, batteries, and operators, upon reasonable and proper terms, any of its poles along the right of way and space in the depots or stations of the railway company not required by the railway company for the transaction of its business. Sixty days after the entry of the decree were given to make such necessary arrangements, adjustments, and changes as might become necessary by reason of the annulling of the above agreements, and in order that the provisions of the decree might be carried into effect. (50 Fed. Rep., 28.) Upon appeal by the defendants to the United States circuit court of appeals for the eighth judicial circuit the decree of the circuit court was reversed and the cause remanded with directions to enter a modified

decree adjudging, among other things, that the agreement of October 1, 1866, was a lawful and binding contract; that the agreements of September 1, 1869, and December 14, 1871, were beyond the powers of the Union Pacific Railway Company and must be annulled; that the equities arising out of the two last-named agreements were adjusted and settled by the parties interested when they made the contract of July 1, 1881; and that this last-named agreement was valid and binding in all respects, except that the third and fourth paragraphs were null and void to the extent, and only to the extent, that they secured or granted, or were intended to secure and grant, to the Western Union Telegraph Company any exclusive rights, privileges, or advan tages whatsoever. (59 Fed. Rep., 813.)

The case then went to the Supreme Court of the United States, and, on November 18, 1895, that court reversed and set aside the decree of the circuit court of appeals and affirmed the decree of the circuit court. But the circuit court was directed to make a supplemental decree enlarging the period within which the defendants may make such arrangements, adjustments, and changes as shall become necessary by reason of the annulling of the contracts of 1866, 1869, 1871, and 1881.

A prominent feature of the decision is the full effect which is given by the Supreme Court to the provision in the act of July 1, 1862, and acts amendatory and supplemental thereto, by which Congress reserved to itself the power of adding to, altering, amending, or repealing those statutes.

merce.

COURT DECISIONS.

EXTENT OF THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO REGULATE COMMERCE UNDER RECENT JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. The decision of the United States Supreme Court In Re Debs (158 U. S., 564) removes any doubts which may have existed as to the extent of the power of the General Government in relation to interstate comIt is here declared that such power amounts to "direct supervision, control, and management." The court, passing by legislation in respect to commerce by water, cites the following acts passed by Congress in exercise of the power to regulate commerce carried on by means of railroads: The act of June 15, 1866 (Rev. Stat., 5258), providing for the connection of railroads so as to form continuous lines of transportation; the act of March 3, 1873 (Rev. Stat., 4386–4389), regulating the transportation of live stock over interstate railroads; the act of May 29, 1884 (23 Stat. L., 32), prohibiting interstate transportation of live stock affected with any contagious or infectious disease; the act of February 4, 1887 (24 Stat. L., 379)-the act to regulate commerce-and its amendments of March 2, 1889 (25 Stat. L., 855), and February 10, 1891 (26 Stat. L., 743); the act of October 1, 1888 (25 Stat. L., 501), providing for arbitration between interstate railroad companies and their employees; the act of March 2, 1893 (27 Stat. L., 531), requiring the use of automatic couplers and other safety appli

ances on cars or trains used in interstate commerce. Regulation of modes of carriage unknown until long after the Constitution was framed is approved by the court in the following language:

Up to a recent date commerce, both interstate and international, was chiefly by water, and it is not strange that both the legislation of Congress and the cases in the courts have been principally concerned therewith. The fact that in recent years interstate commerce has come to be carried on mainly by railroads and over artificial highways has in no manner narrowed the scope of the constitutional provision or abridged the power of Congress over such commerce. On the contrary, the same fullness of control exists in the one case as in the other, and the same power to remove obstructions from the one as from the other.

Constitutional provisions do not change, but their operation extends to new matters as the modes of business and the habits of life of the people vary with each succeeding generation. The law of the common carrier is the same to-day as when transportation on land was by coach and wagon, and on water by canal boat and sailing vessel, yet in its actual operation it touches and regulates transportation by modes then unknown, the railroad train and the steamship. Just so it is with the grant to the national government of power over interstate commerce. The Constitution has not changed. The power is the same. But it operates to-day upon modes of interstate commerce unknown to the fathers, and it will operate with equal force upon any new modes of such commerce which the future may develop.

INJUNCTIONS TO RESTRAIN OR REMOVE OBSTRUCTIONS TO INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

The decision in the Debs case declares that the issuance of injunction orders by a court of equity is proper in cases of actual or threatened obstructions to interstate commerce by railroads, regardless of the criminal character of the offense, if committed, or the liabilities for damages which might result from such obstructions, and that the jurisdiction of the court to interfere by injunction is one recognized from ancient times and by indubitable authority. It is further held that it is competent for the Government to appeal to the circuit courts for inquiry and determination as to the existence and character of any alleged obstructions, and, if such are found to exist or threaten to occur, to invoke the power of the courts to remove or restrain such obstructions.

Under this decision prompt remedy is afforded in cases involving one class of obstructions to commerce, although under prior rulings of the courts there is entire absence of summary procedure in that class of obstructions which the act to regulate commerce was designed to prevent or remove. It will hardly be denied that obstructions to the movement of commerce can be created as effectually by conditions imposed upon carriage as by actual stoppage after the carriage has commenced, or that excessive or unjust transportation charges constitute conditions of carriage which directly accomplish injuries to commercial interests to the extent of actual interference with the movement of property often amounting to actual prohibition. If under the power possessed or exercised by Congress to direct, manage, and control trans