exceeded or were inconsistent with the Constitution. Furthermore, the Supreme Court decided that action in a court to recover losses due to an alleged unreasonable rate cannot be upheld unless the commission has already rendered a decision as to the reasonableness of the rate against which complaint is made, and it has also maintained that, negative orders of the commission are not subject to judicial review, so that a shipper has no right of appeal to the courts from the commission's ruling that a rate is reasonable and from its dismissal of a complaint after due hearing. Among the important decisions relating to the commission's powers handed down by the Supreme Court," one relating to the revivified long-and-short-haul clause, must be mentioned. In 1914 the court upheld the commission in its interpretation of its powers under this clause of the act. It was held that Congress in eliminating the phrase, "similar circumstances and conditions" had granted full authority to the commission to consider competitive conditions and that this power involved the right to perform those acts by means of which alone such power could be exercised. The court did not hold valid the objection that this section of the law delegated legislative power to the commission.

51

Even prior to the passage of the Mann-Elkins Act the commission had called the attention of Congress to the need of a valuation of railroad property. In its annual report for 1908 the commission said on this point:

No court or commission or accountant or financial writer would for a moment consider that the present balance-sheet statement purporting to give the "cost of property" suggests, even in a remote degree, a reliable measure either of money invested or of present value. Thus, at the first touch of critical analysis, the balance sheets published by American railways are found to be

30

Other important decisions may be noted: 234 U. S., 548, sustaining the power of the commission over pipe lines granted by the act of 1906; 240 U. S., 294, sustaining the power of the commission to prescribe the proportion of the through rate to be granted to the tap line, and sustaining the commission's powers under the act of 1910 to establish joint rates; 224 U. S., 194, sustaining the commission's right to require reports from water carriers, and upholding the constitutionality of Section 20, which gives the commission authority over accounts and reports.

31

234 U. S., 476, 495.

inadequate. They are incapable of rendering the service which may rightly be demanded of them. One cure seems possible for such a situation, and one only, and that is for the government to make an authoritative valuation of railway property, and to provide that the amounts so determined should be entered upon the books of the carriers as the accepted measure of capital assets. Under no other conditions can the commission complete in a satisfactory manner the formulation of a standard system of accounts.

Congress complied with this recommendation in the act of March I, 1913 (37 Stat. L., 701), which directed the commission to appraise the property of all common carriers subject to the act to regulate commerce. An inventory was to be made of the property to be valued, and the cost of reproduction both new and less depreciation was to be ascertained. After initial valuation, the commission was required to keep the information up to date. Certain powers were granted the Commission during this period to prevent restraint of competition. The Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912 (37 Stat. L., 566), made it unlawful after July I, 1914, for any common carrier subject to the act to regulate commerce to own, lease, operate, control, or have any interest in any competing carrier by water. The commission was empowered to determine questions of fact as to competition, after full hearing, on the application of any railroad company or other carrier, and to permit beyond July 1, 1914, such ownership or operation of vessels plying elsewhere than through the Panama Canal, when it found it to be in the interest of the public and not in restraint of competition. Jurisdiction was conferred upon the commission in 1914 to administer certain provisions of the Clayton Act approved October 15, 1914 (38 Stat. L., 730), aimed at unlawful restraints and monopolies, in so far as the law applies to carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act. The commission was also authorized to investigate violations of the act by carriers and to require the guilty parties to desist from illegal practices.

Meanwhile, during this period of rehabilitation and extension of the commission's powers, Congress had directed its attention to broadening its authority in regard to the safety of passengers, employees, and property. Its duties in this field and the position of the Chairman in the mechanism for adjustment of labor disputes on the railroads in the first period of its history have already

been described. It was inherent, however, in the modest beginnings then made in this field that an increasing degree of government control over operations should result. It has been indicated that experience under the Safety Appliance Law of 1893 demonstrated the need of certain amendments. The study of the acci-dent reports submitted to the commission by the railroads in accordance with the act of March 3, 1901, revealed certain basic, preventable causes of accidents. In both instances, the commission recommended appropriate legislation which Congress enacted.

In 1903 (Act of March 2, 1903; 32 Stat. L., 943), Congress broadened the Safety Appliance Act so that it applied with minor exceptions "to all trains, locomotives, tenders, cars, and similar vehicles used on any railroad engaged in interstate commerce, and in the territories and the District of Columbia, and to all other locomotives, tenders, cars, and similar vehicles used in connection therewith." It was also provided that not less than 50 per cent of the cars in trains operated with power or train brakes should have such brakes used and operated by the engineer of the locomotive drawing the train, and that all power-braked cars in such train which were associated together with 50 per cent should also have their brakes so used and operated. The commission was empowered to increase, after full hearing, "the minimum percentage of cars in any train required to be operated with power or train brakes which must have their brakes used and operated by the engineer of the locomotive drawing such train." "

66

The marked decline in deaths and injuries following the joint operation of this law and the act of 1893 led the commission in 1909 to urge the full measure of protection to which railroad employees are entitled." It was pointed out that uniformity and sound maintenance of such appliances as sill steps, ladders, roof hand holds, running boards, and hand brakes were "vitally necessary" for the safety of employees, but that the commission's inspectors could not exercise effective supervision over them since they were not covered by the law and no penalty was attached to their use in defective condition. By act of April 14, 1910 (36 Stat. L., 298), Congress complied with the commission's recom

62 On August 1, 1906, the commission extended the minimum percentage to 75 per cent and on June 6, 1910, to 85 per cent.

mendation and required it to designate within six months, the number, dimensions, location, and manner of application to cars used by carriers engaged in interstate commerce, of the appliances mentioned above. The matter was taken up by a joint committee representing the commission, railroad employees, and the carriers, which considered the matter and virtually agreed upon the regulations to be adopted. By order of October 13, 1910, as revised by order of March 13, 1911, definite standards were prescribed and an extension of five years from July 1, 1911, was granted as to some of the appliances mentioned in the act, to give the railroads time to render their equipment conformable to the specified standards.53

By the act of May 30, 1908 (35 Stat. L., 476), the duty was imposed upon the commission of enforcing the provisions of the act which made it unlawful for interstate common carriers to use any locomotive "not equipped with an ashpan which can be dumped or emptied and cleaned without the necessity of any employee going under such locomotive." The law became effective January 1, 1910. In the interval of nineteen months between the approval of the law and the date on which it became effective the carriers subject to the act were enabled to equip nearly all their locomotives as required. In 1904 the commission reported that practically all the locomotives were properly equipped, and that the principal duty of the carriers in this matter was to maintain in suitable condition the devices installed.

By the act of February 17, 1911 (36 Stat. L., 913), various duties were imposed upon the commission relating to the inspection of locomotive boilers. A Chief Inspector and two assistant inspectors were to be appointed by the President, with the concurrence of the Senate, while the commission was required to appoint fifty district inspectors. Rules for locomotive boiler inspection of each carrier were to be filed with the Chief Inspector within three months after the approval of the act and after hear

53 On November 2, 1915, the commission further extended the time for compliance with certain paragraphs of the order to July 1, 1917, and thereafter, on account of war conditions, extensions of time were granted as follows: by order of March 1, 1917, to March 1, 1918; by order of February 1, 1918, to September 1, 1919; and by order of August 29, 1919, to March 1, 1920.

ing and approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission, such rules and instructions, with such modifications as the commission might require, were to become obligatory upon such carrier. The Chief Inspector was to prepare rules for those carriers who failed to file their own rules, and such rules after approval by the commission were to become obligatory. Any changes in the rules were not to take effect until filed with and approved by the commission. The commission was made the final court of appeal from the rulings of the inspectors in regard to serviceability of locomotives. The Chief Inspector, though an appointee of the President, was required to report to the commission both annually and upon its special request. The Chief Inspector or one of his assistants was directed to investigate any accident due to failure from any cause of a locomotive boiler or its appurtenances resulting in the death of one or more persons, and the commission was empowered at any time to call upon the Chief Inspector for a report on such accident and to make it public, if it deemed it to the public interest.

After the appointment of the Chief Inspector and his two assistants, a public hearing was held in Washington in which the representatives of organizations of employees and carriers participated, and thereafter the commission approved the rules and regulations submitted by the Chief Inspector governing the inspection of locomotive boilers. An organization was effected to supervise the inspection and testing of the approximately sixty-three thousand locomotives then subject to the act. Fifty inspection districts were established after the consideration had been given to the number of locomotives, density of traffic, number and location of inspection and repair points, and other relevant considerations. The inspectors were appointed through examination conducted under the auspices of the Civil Service Commission and they were selected from the several branches of the locomotive service.

After the district inspectors were placed in the field they reported locomotives with serious defects in parts not covered by the boiler inspection law. Although there was no legal authority to act in such cases, inspectors were instructed to report such defects as were liable to cause accidents to the proper railroad offices for voluntary remedial action. This situation was relieved by the act of March 4, 1915 (38 Stat. L., 1192), which extended the safety requirements of the Boiler Inspection Act of February 17, 1911, to