It was decided in the case of Chicago, M. & St. P. R. R. Co. against Minnesota, 134 U. S., 418, that the right to make a reasonable rate was a property right. In the case of Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago Great Western Ry., 209 U. S., 118, the Supreme Court said:
"It must be remembered that railroads are the private property of their owners; that while from the public character of the work in which they are engaged the public has the power to prescribe rules for securing faithful and efficient service and equality between shippers and communities, yet in no proper sense is the public a general manager."
Justice Brewer, in the above case, page 108, speaking for the court said:
"It must also be remembered that there is no presumption of wrong arising from a change of rate by a carrier. The presumption of honest intent and right conduct attends the action of carriers as well as it does the action of other corporations or individuals in their transactions in life. Undoubtedly when rates are changed the carrier making the change must, when properly called upon, be able to give a good reason therefor, but the mere fact that a rate has been raised carries with it no presumption that it was not rightfully done. Those presumptions of good faith and integrity which have been recognized for ages as attending human action have not been overthrown by any legislation in respect to common carriers."
It is claimed that the indefinite suspension of the rate until final hearing is to deprive the carrier, if the rate advanced is reasonable, of its right of property during the period of suspension, without having given it any opportunity to be heard prior to the act of suspension. Due process of law must precede, and should not follow, the suspension. To set aside the carrier's act in fixing the rate pending the investigation required by due process of law is to deprive the carrier, pro tanto, of its property right to charge a reasonable rate. The fact that the statute requires an investigation after the suspension of the rate does not avoid the constitutional inhibition, as that provision can only be satisfied when the investigation precedes any disturbance of property rights. The carrier is entitled to the investigation before it is restrained in the exercise of its property rights; the theory of the amendment suggested is that the shipper is entitled to an investigation before the carrier can exercise its property rights.
Those contending for this objection to the amendment assumed that the indefinite suspension without hearing of the act of the carrier which deprived it, beyond a reasonable time, of the benefit of the advanced rate, was in effect the same as that which was condemned by the Supreme Court in the case of the Chicago, M. & St. P. R. R. Co. against Minnesota. Under the statute of that State, a carrier had the right to initiate the rate, and to put it in effect, and, under the law, the commission was authorized to make such changes as it deemed proper in the schedule so filed, and to direct the carrier to modify or change the schedule in accordance with the decision of the tribunal. In the one case the going into effect of the rate is suspended indefinitely without notice or hearing; in the other, the rate is changed or modified without hearing. On page 418 the court condemns this in the following language:
"No hearing is provided for, no summons or notice to the company before the commission has found what it is to find and declared what it is to declare, no opportunity provided for the company to introduce witnesses before the commission, in fact, nothing which has the semblance of the process of law."
On page 458 the court said:
"If the company is deprived of the power of charging reasonable rates for the use of its property, and such deprivation takes place in the absence of an investigation by judicial machinery, it is deprived of the lawful use of its property, and thus, in substance and effect of the property itself without due process of law and in violation of the Constitution of the United States."