erstate Commerce Act.# Public hostility to
private railroad management was greatest in the regions where the
most rapid building of roads occurred from 1866 to 1873. One center of
grievances was in "the granger states' of Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas,
Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota; another center was in the oil regions
of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Eastern states were not without their
troubles, for the report of the Hepburn Committee of the New York
legislature in 1879 showed that discrimination between shippers
prevailed to an almost incredible degree in every portion of New York
state. When the courts, in 1886, decided that the greater portion of
the railroad rates could not be treated by state commissions, national
control was loudly demanded. Scores of bills were presented to
Congress between 1870 and 1886, and, despite much opposition, the
Interstate Commerce Act was passed in 1887.

The act laid down some general rules: that rates should be just and
reasonable; that railroads should not pool, or agree to divide,
their earnings to avoid competition; that they should, under similar
conditions, and, unless expressly excused, fix rates in accordance
with the long- and short-haul principle (to charge no more for a
shorter distance than for a longer one on the same line and in the
same direction, the shorter being included within the longer). The
act provided for a commission of five men, to be appointed by the
President, which might require uniform accounts from the railroads,
and which should enforce the provisions of the act.

Sec. 17. #Working of the Act.# The commission in its earlier years
gave promise of effectiveness, but its powers, as interpreted by the
courts, proved inadequate to its assigned task. The railroads in many
cases refused to obey its orders, and court decisions paralyzed its
activity. Competent authorities declared in 1901, after fourteen years
of the commission's operation, that discrimination never had been
worse, and a series of exposures of abuses strengthened the popular
demand for stricter legislation. The result was first the Elkins' Act
of 1903, aimed at discrimination and rebates, and then the Hepburn
Act Of 1906, which marked a new era in railroad regulation in this
country. The commission was increased to seven members, its authority
was extended to include express, sleeping car, and other agencies of
transportation, and it was given the power to fix maximum rates,
not to be suspende