Sec. 17. #Working of the Act.# The commission in its earlier years gave promise of effectiveness, but its powers, as interpreted by the courts, proved inadequate to its assigned task.  The railroads in many cases refused to obey its orders, and court decisions paralyzed its activity.  Competent authorities declared in 1901, after fourteen years of the commission’s operation, that discrimination never had been worse, and a series of exposures of abuses strengthened the popular demand for stricter legislation.  The result was first the Elkins’ Act of 1903, aimed at discrimination and rebates, and then the Hepburn Act Of 1906, which marked a new era in railroad regulation in this country.  The commission was increased to seven members, its authority was extended to include express, sleeping car, and other agencies of transportation, and it was given the power to fix maximum rates, not to be suspended by the courts without a hearing.  It became thus unquestionably a commission of “the strong type.”  It began to exercise its new powers with vigor, and the carriers reluctantly accepted its authority.  Responsive to a calmer but insistent popular demand further amendments were made by the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910, which strengthened the long-and-short-haul clause, and gave to the commission, among other new powers, that of suspending new rates proposed by carriers.  A special Commerce Court of five judges was created with exclusive jurisdiction in certain classes of railroad cases, but this was abolished after a short trial.

It cannot be said that a final satisfactory solution of the railroad problem has been attained; indeed, in most human affairs such a thing is unattainable.  But it can be said that there is no considerable sentiment anywhere in favor of reversing the railroad policy that has been developed, as here briefly outlined.  Certainly the public has no such sentiment, and the railroads, which for many years opposed the progress of strong federal control, are now foremost in advocacy of a policy of exclusive national regulation, to remedy the evil of “forty-nine masters.”

Sec. 18. #Public nature of the railroad franchise.# A pretty definite public opinion regarding the nature of the problem has emerged from the nearly half-century of experience and discussion, since the first vigorous agitation of the subject in the seventies of the last century.  Railroads in our country are owned by private corporations and are managed by private citizens, not, as in some countries, by public officials.  They have been built by private enterprise, in the interest of the investors, not as a charity or as a public benefaction.  Railroad-building appears thus at first glance to be a case of free competition where public interests are served in the following of private interests.  But, looked at more closely, it may be seen to be in many ways different from the ordinary competitive business.  Competition would make the building of railroads a matter of bargain