any part thereof is prohibited and declared to be unlawful: Provided, That messages by telegraph, telephone, or cable, subject to the provisions of this Act, may be classified into day, night, repeated, unrepeated, letter, commercial, press, Government, and such other classes as are just and reasonable, and different rates may be charged for the different classes of messages: [Exchange of services.] And provided further, That nothing in this Act shall be con strued to prevent telephone, telegraph, and cable companies from entering into contracts with common carriers, for the exchange of services. [Further duty of carrier.] And it is hereby made the duty of all common carriers subject to the provisions of this Act to establish, observe, and enforce just and reasonable classifications of property for transporta tion, with reference to which rates, tariffs, regulations, or practices are or may be made or prescribed, and just and reasonable regulations and practices affecting classifications, rates, or tariffs, the issuance, form, and substance of tickets, receipts, and bills of lading, the manner and method of presenting, marking, packing, and delivering property for transportation, the facili ties for transportation, the carrying of personal, sample, and excess baggage, and all other matters relating to or connected with the receiving, handling, transporting, storing, and delivery of property subject to the provisions of this Act which may be nocessary or proper to secure the safe and prompt receipt, handling transportation, and delivery of property subject to the provisions of this Act upon just and reasonable terms, and every such unjust and unreasonable classification, regulation, and practic with reference to commerce between the States and with foreig1 countries is prohibited and declared to be unlawful. [Free passes and free transportation prohibited.] No common carrier subject to the provisions of this Act shall, after January first, nineteen hundred and seven, directly or indirectly, issue or give any interstate free ticket, free pass, or free [Excepted classes.] transportation for passengers, except to its employees and their families, its officers, agents, surgeons, physicians, and attorneys at law; to ministers of religion, traveling secretaries of railroad Young Men's Christian Associations, inmates of hospitals and charitable and eleemosynary institutions, and persons exclusively engaged in charitable and eleemosynary work; to indigent, destitute, and homeless persons, and to such persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals, and the necessary agents employed in such transportation; to inmates of the National Homes or State Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, and of Soldiers' and Sailors' Homes, including those about to enter and those returning home after discharge; to necessary care takers of live stock, poultry, milk, and fruit; to employees on sleeping cars, express cars, and to linemen of telegraph and telephone companies; to Railway Mail Service employees, postoffice inspectors, customs inspectors, and immigration inspectors; to newsboys on trains, baggage agents, witnesses attending any legal investigation in which the common carrier is interested, persons injured in wrecks and physicians and nurses attending [Interchange of authorized passes and franks.] such persons: Provided, That this provision shall not be construed to prohibit the interchange of passes for the officers, agents, and employees of common carriers, and their families; nor to prohibit any common carrier from carrying passengers free with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence, or other calamitous visitation: And provided further, That this provision shall not be construed to prohibit the privilege of passes or franks, or the exchange thereof with each other, for the officers, agents, employees, and their families of such telegraph, telephone and cable lines, and the officers, agents, employees and their families of other common carriers subject to the provisions of this Act: Provided further, That the [Amendment of April 13, 1908, and June 18, 1910.] [Extension of meaning of term "employees” and “fami lies."] term "employees" as used in this paragraph shall include furloughed, pensioned, and superannuated employees, persons who have become disabled or infirm in the service of any such common carrier, and the remains of a person killed in the employment of a carrier, and ex-employees traveling for the purpose of entering the service of any such common carrier; and the term "families" as used in this paragraph shall include the families of those persons named in this proviso, also the families of persons killed, and the widows during widowhood and minor children during minority of persons who died, while in the service of any such common carrier. Any common carrier violat [Jurisdiction and penalty for violation.] ing this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdeameanor, and for each offense, on conviction, shall pay to the United States a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, and any person, other than the persons excepted in the provision, who uses any such interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation shall be subject to a like penalty. Jurisdiction of offenses under this provision shall be the same as that provided for offenses in an Act entitled "An Act to further regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States," approved February nineteenth, nineteen hundred and three, and any amendment thereof. From and after May first, nineteen hundred and eight, it shall be unlawful for any railroad company to transport from [Railroad companies prohibited from transporting com- any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, to any other State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or to any foreign country, any article or commodity, other than timber and the manufactured products thereof, manufactured, mined, or produced by it, or under its authority, or which it may own in whole or in part, or in which it may have any interest, direct or indirect, except such articles or commodities as may be necessary and intended for its use in the conduct of its business as a common carrier. Any common carrier subject to the provisions of this Act, upon application of any lateral, branch line of railroad, or of any shipper tendering interstate traffic for transportation, shall con [Switch connections.] struct, maintain, and operate upon reasonable terms a switch connection with any such lateral, branch line of railroad, or private side track which may be construced to connect with its railroad, where such connection is reasonably practicable and can be put in with safety and will furnish sufficient business to justify the construction and maintenance of the same; and shall furnish cars for the movement of such traffic to the best of its ability without discrimination in favor of or against any such [Switch connections may be ordered by the commis sion.] shipper. If any common carrier shall fail to install and operate any such switch or connection as aforesaid on application therefor in writing by any shipper or owner of such lateral, branch line of railroad, such shipper or owner of such lateral, branch line of railroad may make complaint to the Commission, as provided in section thirteen of this Act, and the Commission shall hear and investigate the same and shall determine as to the safety and praticability thereof and justification and reasonable compensation therefor, and the Commission may make an order, as provided in section fifteen of this Act, directing the common carrier to comply with the provisions of this section in accordance with such order, and such order shall be enforced as hereinafter provided for the enforcement of all other orders by the Commission, other than orders for the payment of money. § 134. Amendments to the section.-For convenience of reference section 1 is given above as it appeared in the original act of 1887 and as amended June 18, 1910. No change was made in this section, as first enacted, until the passage of the Hepburn act in 1906, the text of which can be followed substantially by reading the roman type of the print of the act of 1910 as above given. The amendment of 1908 with respect to passes is noted in the margin and the additions of 1910 are printed in italics. It will be seen that the scope of the act was greatly enlarged in 1906 and further materially extended in 1910. From 1887 to 1906 the purview of the act was limited to commerce between the states in which rail carriers participated in the through transportation. By the Hepburn act of 1906 oil pipe-lines, express companies and sleeping car companies were brought within its scope; the terms "railroad" and "transportation" were more elaborately defined; the obligation to establish through routes imposed; a specific prohibition of free passes was declared, provision being made for certain exceptions therefrom; the "commodities clause" inserted; and, under certain conditions, switch-connections made imperative. The act of 1910, commonly called the Mann-Elkins act, added telegraph, telephone and cable companies to those subject to this regulation, making the necessary changes in the succeeding portions of the section. There is a striking addition also in the inclusion, among matters subject to the jurisdiction of the commission, of classifications, regulations and practices of the carriers with respect to various forms of transportation and of the evidences of contracts having relation thereto. § 135 (105). All of interstate commerce not included.-As defined in this section all carriers engaged in interstate commerce are not subject to the act; nor is all "transportation," or "transmission," between the states included. Clearly the intention of the act is to regulate all carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property by railroad, or by rail and water when said rail and water transportation is under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage. The amendment of 1906 subjects pipe lines transporting "oil or other commodity" to regulation; but the inclusion of "express companies and sleeping car companies" in the term common carrier and the further elaboration of the definition of the term "transportation" merely show the determination of congress to embrace all transportation by rail between the states. This section as it now stands, shows the growing purpose of the act to be federal regulation of all means of interstate commerce that by nature are subject to monoply or combination. Interstate transportation wholly by water is not included nor is that moving by team or wagon. 7 I. C. C. Rep. 286. Congress had repeatedly legislated with respect to water transportation, but in this enactment its attention was directed mainly to the abuses in railroad transportation. The pooling of traffic by water carriers is a matter over which the commission has no jurisdiction (13 I. C. C. Rep. 266); and an ocean carrier established under the laws of Cuba and transporting traffic between Havana and Galveston, is not subject to the act. 13 I. C. C. Rep. 310. Carriers of interstate commerce by water are subject to the act to regulate commerce only in respect to traffic transported under a common control, management or arrangement with the rail carrier for a continuous carriage or shipment; and in respect to traffic not so transported they are exempt from its provisions. 15 I. C. C. Rep. 205 and 21 I. C. C. Rep. 207. This limitation of the scope of the act extends to the power of the commission in requiring reports. See infra, secs. 15 and 20 of act. It was held by the commerce court (Oct. 5, 1911) Fed. in the cases of the Goodrich Transit Company and other companies operating steamers in the Great Lakes from Chicago, that the commission had authority to require reports with respect to their interstate business in connection with railroads, but that it had no authority to call for reports of their transactions relating exclusively to "port-to-port" interstate business or to intrastate traffic or affairs. A steamboat on a navigable river can only demand of a railroad connecting with river points that it receive and deliver freight at the published locate rates, as an independent water line is not included in the act. 4 I. C. C. Rep. 265, 3 I. C. Rep. 278. A carrier by water, which has not joined in a traffic and division sheet filed and published by connecting railroad carriers between two points, does not become a party to a common arrangement for the carriage of such a shipment. Mutual Transit v. U. S., C. C. A. second circuit, 1910, 178 Fed. 664. Under the amendment of 1906 the commission is empowered to establish a through rate when one of the connecting carriers is a water line. See section 15, infra. The decisions of the courts on this question have been in accord with the rulings of the commission. A railroad lying wholly within the state which transports freight, whether coming from within or without the state, solely on local bills of lading on a special contract limited to its own lines, and without dividing charges with any other carriers or assuming any obli |