If, then, we do not import into subsection (2) criteria or language contained in other coordinate subsections of the same section, and if we adhere, instead, to the literal meaning of subsection (2) and give to its words their usual meaning, it is plain that under that subsection Congress intended us to ignore as irrelevant the place of operation of the operating subsidiaries of the holding company, and that we should in the instant case consider solely whether the operations of Union Electric Company of Missouri itself, as an operating company, are confined to the State of Missouri and contiguous states.

In determining the intent of Congress in the use of the word "predominantly," we are required to construe the statute according to a fair interpretation of its terms. In the absence of some considerations apparent upon the face of the statute or embodied in legislative history, unusual meanings of words must be avoided and ordinary definitions followed. It is true that, to avoid hardship or absurd consequences, which would defeat the obvious reasonable intention of the legislature, the language of a statute, in appropriate circumstances, may be given an unusual construction. But there is no reason in this case for applying such a rule of statutory interpretation; for, as above shown, it would make no substantial practical difference in the result of our order, if we adopted applicant's unusual interpretation of clause (2). While the practical difference in the instant case would be virtually nil, such an interpretation should be avoided, lest, in some future case, not now before us, it should serve as a precedent compelling results, not now foreseeable, subversive of the Congressional intent. Judicial history warns us that, when not necessary, it is unwise to leave the path of conservative normal interpretation and to go adventuring into the unusual.15

14 Among judicial decisions illustrating the rule that the usual meaning of statutory language must be followed are United States v. Missouri Pac. Ry. Co., 213 Fed. 169, 173 (C. C. A. 8th, 1914); Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. United States, 213 Fed. 162, 166, 168 (C. C. A. 8th, 1914); Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 301 U. S. 379, 381 (1937). Thus in Old Colony R. R. Co. v. Comm., 284 U. S. 552, 560 (1932), the Supreme Court approved the statement made in Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Co., 267 U. S. 364, 370 (1925), to the effect that the plain and obvious meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to "any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover."

Other cases illustrating the rule that the courts will not import, by interpretation, provisions into a statute, are Echols v. Commissioner, 61 Fed. (2d) 191, 192 (C. C. A. 8th, 1932); Wabash R. R. Co. v. United States, 178 Fed. 5, 11-12 (C. C. A. 8th, 1910); Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 485, 489, 490 (1917); United States v. Goldenberg, 168 U. S. 95, 102-103 (1897).

In the field of government as well as in the field of science, the so-called "law of parsimony" should govern: One should, ordinarily, not use an elaborate method of accomplishing a result when a simpler method is available. Thus modern science, instead of adapting by elaboration the Ptolemaic theory, adopted simpler methods of explaining the movements of the heavenly bodies. Cf. as to recent developments in physics, Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics. And so here: the direct route to the conclusion in the instant case is preferable to the circuitous route urged by the applicant which would in effect arrive at substantially the same conclusion.

In addition, the courts, in passing upon suggested interpretations of statutes, involving the importation of language not there found, have frequently repudiated such interpretations on the ground that, if such had been the legislative intent, "it would have been very easy to say so." 16 The "very-easy-to-say-so" rule has peculiar pertinence as applied to subsection (2). For elsewhere in this very statute, as for example in Section 11 (b) (1), Congress explicitly made the existence of an integrated or physically interconnected operating system an important relevant fact, and an "integrated public utility system" is expressly defined in Section 2 (a) (29). Plainly if Congress had intended to make physical interconnection a relevant criterion under subsection (2) of Section 3 (a) it had at hand in Section 2 (a) (29) the precise words of art to express that intention. It is significant, therefore, that no such definition was used in Section 3 (a) (2).

Moreover, any construction of subsection (2) of Section 3 (a) broader than justified by its words flies in the face of the fundamental policy of the Holding Company Act. That policy is the federal regulation of public utility holding companies in all cases where state regulation cannot be completely effective. The need for such regulation is especially set forth in clause (a) (5) of Section 1 and the various provisions of subsection (b) of Section 1; and subsection (c) of Section 1 expressly provides that "it is hereby declared to be the policy of this title, in accordance with which policy all the provisions of this title shall be interpreted, to meet the problems and eliminate the evils as enumerated in this section . . ." That policy of federal regulation, in such cases, found in Section 1 (a) (5), must therefore be applied, if possible, in interpreting subsection (2) of Section 3 (a). This is emphasized by the fact that that policy is distinctly embodied in the coordinate subsection (1) of Section 3 (a) which permits an exemption of a holding company, if that company, and every subsidiary public utility company from which the holding company derives any material part of its income, are predominantly intrastate in character and carry on their business substantially in a single state in which such holding company and every subsidiary public utility company are organized. Applying that section, the Commission was required in In the matter of Houston Natural Gas Co., 3 S. E. C. 664 (1938), to deny an application for exemption

10 See, for example, Farrington v. Tennessee, 95 U. S. 679, 689 (1877); Union Natl. Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621, 627 (1878); Baltimore & P. R. R. Co. v. Grant, 98 U. S. 398, 403 (1878); Vicksburg, S. & P. R. R. Co. v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665, 670 (1886); United States v. Chase, 135 U. S. 255, 259 (1890); United States v. Koch, 40 Fed. 250, 252 (Brewer, J., in Circuit Court, E. D. Mo., 1889); Harrington v. Herrick, 64 Fed. 468, 471 (C. C. A. 9th, 1894); Central Real Estate Co. v. Commissioner, 47 F. (2d) 1036, 1037 (C. C. A. 5th, 1931).

under Section 3 (a) (1) where the holding company was incorporated in Delaware even though all of the utility subsidiaries were incorporated in Texas and operated in that state.

Accordingly, the conclusion is inescapable under the terms of the statute that Union Electric Company of Missouri is in a very substantial sense a holding company. Consequently, it cannot be considered as predominantly a public utility company, and we are compelled to deny the application for exemption under Section 3 (a) (2) of the Act.

An order will be entered denying the application of Union Electric Company of Missouri for exemption under Section 3 (a) (2) of the Act.

By the Commission: Commissioner Healy, concurring in the result, Commissioner Mathews, dissenting, and Commissioner Henderson, not participating.

Commissioner MATHEWS dissenting:

The essential facts as to the Union Electric Company of Missouri and its subsidiaries and as to the relations between the parent and the subsidiaries, are set forth in the majority opinion. The majority concludes that Union Electric Company of Missouri is not predominantly a public utility company within the meaning of Section 3 (a) (2) of the Act. With this conclusion I am unable to agree. I do not take the position that, merely because Union Electric Company of Missouri, judged by quantitative measurements, is larger than its subsidiaries, it is necessarily predominantly a public utility company. If, for example, the subsidiaries were scattered and entirely separated physically and in their operations from the properties and operations of the parent, it seems to me that it would be quite possible to hold that the parent is not predominantly a public utility company. That, of course, is not the case here. All of the utility subsidiaries are, in fact, a part of one operating system. Some or all of them might and probably would cease to exist as separate companies if it were not for the requirements of state law governing the right to hold franchises.

The Union Electric Company of Missouri, in its holding company capacity, is merely a convenient means of bringing together an inte grated operating system, and the holding company functions are incidental to those of operation. The fact that Mississippi River Power Company has securities outstanding with the public does not change the situation. The company is no less an operating part of the St. Louis system because of that situation.

It is not necessary, in order to accomplish the purposes of the Act, to extend the interpretation of Section 3 (a) (2) beyond the meaning

which would ordinarily be associated with its language. To hold that Union Electric Company of Missouri is predominantly a public utility company within the meaning of Section 3 (a) (2) does not mean that the company will be freed from regulation if it would be detrimental to the public interest or the interest of investors or consumers to free it from such regulation. The majority opinion concludes that Union Electric Company of Missouri should be subject in certain respects to regulation as a holding company. To be of the opinion that the company is predominantly a public utility company within Section 3 (a) (2), need not lead one to question the ultimate conclusion expressed in the majority opinion as to the necessity for subjecting the company to regulation as a holding company. To whatever extent it is considered necessary that Union Electric Company of Missouri be subjected to regulation as a holding company, it seems to me it may be so subjected even though it is predominantly a public utility company. Section 3 (a) of the Act provides, with respect to this situation, that if the company is predominantly a public utility company within Section 3 (a) (2), the Commission shall exempt it "from any provision or provisions of this title, unless and except insofar as it finds the exemption detrimental to the public interest or the interest of investors or consumers. . ." Inasmuch as the public interest and the interest of investors and consumers are the standards by which we must be guided, it seems to me that we would have no purpose in attempting to subject the applicant to the provisions of the Act further than necessary to comply with those standards, and to the extent that the application of those standards would require that the company be subject to the provisions of the Act, Section 3 seems to me to provide the appropriate method for bringing it within the provisions.

One might raise the question as to what our position would be if the condition necessary to bring Union Electric Company of Missouri within the controls established by the Act were a finding that it is predominantly a public utility company. In view of the facts set forth in the majority opinion relative to the company and its subsidiaries and to their relationships, it seems to me that only by a forced interpretation of the term could we hold that it is not predominantly a public utility company if being such utility were essential to making the company subject to any regulatory provision.

That, of course, is not the condition here, and what finding might have to be reached if the law were different is not controlling, but all the purposes of the Act and I think all of the purposes which the majority seeks to accomplish, can as well be accomplished by holding that the applicant is predominantly a public utility company and subjecting it to the provisions of the Act insofar as the public interest

or the interest of investors and consumers require; the available physical measurements of the situation clearly indicate that, in the entire system of Union Electric Company of Missouri, its functions as an operating company predominate, and the system as a whole is a single operating system in which the holding company relationships seem to me to be an incidental device to enable the maintenance of the operating conditions.

It does not seem necessary to discuss the extent to which the application of the majority opinion subjects the company to regulation under the Act. Whatever that extent should be, a finding under Section 3 (a) (2) that the company is predominantly a public utility company as described in that section, and reference to the public interest and the interest of investors or consumers, would enable the Commission to subject the company to the requirements of the Act just as fully as it may be so subjected by traveling any other route.

5 S. E. C.