These provisions are covered by the first ten sections of the act. Section 11 establishes the Interstate Commerce Commission, to be composed of five commissioners appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It provides that the commissioners first appointed shall continue in office for the term of two, three, four, five and six years, respectively, from the first of January, 1887, the term of each to be designated by the President, and that their successors shall be appointed for terms of six years, except that any person chosen to fill a vacancy shall be appointed only for the unexpired term of the commissioner whom he shall succeed. No more than three commissioners may be appointed from the same political party, and the President has the power to remove any commissioner for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. Authority is given to the commission to inquire into the management of the business of all common carriers subject to the provisions of the act and to require the attendance of witnesses and to invoke the aid of any court of the United States for that purpose.
Section 13 authorizes any person, firm, corporation or association, any mercantile, agricultural or manufacturing society, any body politic or municipal organization to file complaints against any common carrier subject to the provisions of the act, with the commission, whose duty it is made to forward a statement of the charges to such common carrier and call upon him to satisfy the complaint or answer the same in writing, and to investigate the matters complained of, if the complaint is not satisfied. The commission is also charged with the duty of making such investigations at the request of State or territorial railroad commissions and may even institute them at its own motion. Section 14 requires the commission to make a report in writing of any investigation it may make and to enter it of record and furnish copies of it to the complainant and the common carrier complained of. Section 15 makes it the commissioners' duty, when it is found that any law cognizable by it has been violated by a common carrier, to serve notice on such carrier to desist from such violation and to make reparation for an injury found to have been done. If any lawful order or requirement of the commission is disobeyed by a common carrier, it becomes their duty and is lawful for any company or person interested in such order to apply by petition to the Circuit Court of the United States sitting in equity in the judicial district in which the common carrier complained of has its principal office, and the court has power to hear and determine the matter speedily and without the formal pleadings and proceedings applicable to ordinary suits, and to restrain the common carrier from continuing such violation or disobedience. It is further provided by this section that on such hearings the report of the commission shall be accepted as prima facie evidence.
Section 17 regulates the proceedings of the commission. A majority constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. The commission may from time to time make or amend rules for the regulation of proceedings before it. Any party may appear before it and be heard in person or by attorney, and every vote or official act of the commission must be entered of record and its proceedings made public upon the request of either party interested.
Section 19 provides that the principal office of the commission shall be in Washington, but that for the convenience of the public it may hold special sessions in any part of the United States.
Section 20 authorizes the commission to require annual reports from all common carriers subject to the provisions of the act, to fix the time and prescribe the manner in which such reports shall be made, and to require from such carriers specific answers to all questions upon which the commission may need information.
Section 21 excepts from the operation of the act the carriage of property for the United States, State or municipal governments, or for charitable purposes, or for fairs and expositions; also the issuance of mileage, excursion and commutation tickets, the giving of reduced rates to ministers of religion, the free carriage by a railroad company of its own officers and employes, and the exchanging of passes or tickets among the principal officers of railroad companies.
The sections not noticed are of minor importance, relating to annual reports, salaries, appropriations of funds, etc.
The act was amended on March 2, 1889, but the amendments made did not materially affect its principal provisions.
When the law was passed its friends well realized that its success would greatly depend on the character of the commissioners whom it was incumbent upon the President to appoint. It was feared that if the railroad influence should control these appointments, the power to suspend the long and short haul clause would be the chief and perhaps the only power exercised by the commission. There was great danger that the office of Interstate Commerce Commissioner might become a sinecure for servile railroad lawyers, as similar State officers had been before, and that a public trust might be turned into an additional corporation agency for evil. The selection of the commissioners, and especially that of Judge T. M. Cooley, of Michigan, was greatly to the credit of President Cleveland. A man of unquestionable integrity, an eminent jurist and close student of railroad affairs, Judge Cooley was particularly well qualified for the office of chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which he occupied for nearly five years with signal fitness, and from which he only retired to the sincere regret of the American people. Under Judge Cooley's leadership the commission has been more than a purely executive board. It was under the Constitution not in the power of Congress to clothe the Interstate Commerce Commission with full judicial authority without giving its members, like other Federal judges, tenure for life, instead of a term of years. The inherent force of the commission's decisions in its interpretation of the law made them in many cases virtually the equivalent of judicial rulings.
A few of the most important decisions of the commission may be mentioned here. Construing the long and short haul clause, they held that, in case of complaint for violating this section of the act, "the burden of proof is on the carrier to justify any departure from the general rule described by the statute, by showing that the circumstances and conditions are substantially dissimilar." They also decided that "when a greater charge in the aggregate is made for the transportation of passengers or the like kind of property for a shorter than a longer distance over the same line in the same direction, the shorter being included in the longer distance, it is not sufficient justification therefor that the traffic which is subjected to such greater charge is way or local traffic and that which is given the more favorable rates is not; and that it is not "sufficient justification for such greater charge that the short-haul traffic is more expensive to the carrier, unless when the circumstances are such as to make it exceptionally excessive, or the long-haul traffic exceptionally inexpensive, the difference being extraordinary and susceptible of definite proof; nor that the lesser charge on the longer haul has for its motive the encouragement of manufactures or some other branch of industry, nor that it is designed to build up business or trade centers."