ferred by this Business Corporation Act. Where the State
creates a monopoly, it puts the public at the mercy of the grantee
of that franchise. Therefore, it is logical and just that it should
regulate the rates. The test, however, is not and cannot be, that the
man is ready to serve all comers, or even that he is compelled so to
do; hotel-keepers, barbers, restaurants, doctors, etc., have never
had their charges regulated by law. In early days most tradesmen were
compelled to serve any and all, at an equal price, under liability
for damages.[1] Mills, indeed, have always been subject to have their
tolls regulated; at least, a certain proportion of the grist had to go
to the miller; but even if it be held they had no peculiar franchise,
the exception is as old as the rule.

[Footnote 1: Holmes J., _ex banco_, in United States _v_. Standard Oil
Co., March 14, 1910.]

It is further noteworthy that since the Granger cases themselves,
there has been no extension of the doctrine of Chief Justice Waite to
other trades or industries, while the extent of the doctrine, that is,
the amount of regulation permissible under the Constitution, has
been very much limited. Waite's opinion gives no intimation of any
constitutional limit whatever, but dozens of the decisions of
the Supreme Court since draw the limit this side of the point of
confiscation; that is to say, at a "reasonable return," whatever that
phrase may mean. It was, indeed, at first extended to semi-private
grain elevators on the prairies, to elevators monopolizing the water
front of Buffalo, New York, and to floating elevators in New York
Harbor, the first and last of which show certainly no element of legal
monopoly, while the Buffalo case at most only a geographical one.
Still, elevators were the subject of Munn _v_. Illinois itself.[1] And
it has never been extended to a mere _de facto_ or "virtual" monopoly
arising only from the accident of trade. Moreover, in matters of
interstate commerce, although it might have been argued that such
affairs were left absolutely to the plenary power of Congress, which
might well, if it chose, pass laws preventing any railroad from
engaging in interstate business, except at a certain rate per mile for
passengers or freight--or that no vessel should be allowed to carry
passengers or freight from foreign countries except at a certain price
per head or per ton--yet the Supreme Court seems to have held that
even this plenary power ov