"Whoever will candidly examine the reports of the commission from year to year, and thus become acquainted with the work which has been done and is now going on, will have no doubt of the potential value of this enactment in correcting public sentiment, restraining public injustice and enforcing the principle of reasonable charges and equal treatment. Imperfections and weaknesses which could not be anticipated at the time of its passage have since been disclosed by the effort to give it effective administration. The test of experience, so far from condemning the policy of public regulation, has established, its importance and intensified its necessity. The very respects in which the existing law has failed to meet public expectation point out the advantages and demonstrate the utility of Government supervision....
"Of this much we are convinced: The public demand for Government regulation and the necessity for legal protection against the encroachments of railroad corporations have not been diminished by the experience of the last six years. The act to regulate commerce was not framed to meet a temporary emergency, nor in obedience to a transient and spasmodic sentiment. The people will not tolerate a return to the injustice and wrong-doing which inevitably occurs when no correction is undertaken and no regulation attempted. The evils of unrestricted management will not be permanently endured, and legal remedies will continue to be sought until they are amply provided. The present statute, however crude and inadequate in many respects, was the constitutional exercise of most important powers and the legislative expression of a great and wholesome principle. Its fundamental and pervading purpose is to secure equality of treatment. It assumes that the railroads are engaged in a public service, and requires that service to be impartially performed. It asserts the right of every citizen to use the agencies which the carrier provides on equal terms with all his fellows, and finds an invasion of that right in every unauthorized exemption from charges commonly imposed.
"The railroad is justly regarded as a public facility which every person may enjoy at pleasure, a common right to which all are admitted and from which none are excluded. The essence of this right is equality, and its enjoyment can be complete only when it is secured on like conditions by all who desire its benefits. The railroad exists by virtue of authority proceeding from the State, and thus differs in its essential nature from every form of private enterprise. The carrier is invested with extraordinary powers, which are delegated by the sovereign, and thereby performs a governmental function. The favoritism, partiality and exactions which the law was designed to prevent resulted, in large measure, from a general misapprehension of the nature of transportation and its vital relation to commercial and industrial progress. So far from being a private possession, it differs from every species of property, and is in no sense a commodity. Its office is peculiar, for it is essentially public. The railroad, therefore, can rightfully do nothing which the State itself might not do if it performed this public service through its own agents instead of delegating it to corporations which it has created. The large shipper is entitled to no advantage over his smaller rival in respect of rates or accommodations, for the compensation exacted in every case should be measured by the same standard. To allow any exceptions to this fundamental rule is to subvert the principle upon which free institutions depend and substitute arbitrary caprice for equality of right.
"The spirit of the law is opposed to usages so long continued and so familiar that their unjust and demoralizing character has not been clearly perceived, but it is a long step towards such regulation of the agencies of transportation as will make them equally available to all without discrimination between individuals or communities. It can hardly be the fault of those who are charged with its administration if the beneficial aims of this statute have not been fully attained and compliance with its provisions not completely secured. A better understanding of its purpose and an educated public sentiment, aided by the needful amendments which experience suggests, will fully vindicate the policy of Congress in undertaking to bring the great transportation interests of the country into general harmony with its requirements.
"It affords us gratification to add that many railroad managers of the highest standing now concede the necessity for Government regulation, and avow themselves in favor of such further enactments as will make that regulation effective."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE RATE QUESTION.
Railroad managers frequently make the assertion that the average freight rates charged in the United States are lower than those usually charged in European countries and that this fact is in itself sufficient proof that they are too low. A comparison of the transportation problem of Europe with our own will show this argument to be fallacious.