comprehensive at the outset as to require no alteration or
amendment. Those who are familiar with the practices which
obtained prior to the passage of this law and contrast them
with the methods and conditions now existing will accord to
the present statute great influence in the direction of
necessary reforms and a high degree of usefulness in
promoting the public interest.

"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 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.

"Moreover, it may be fairly claimed that much greater
benefits would have been realized had the statute as enacted
expressed the evident purpose of those who framed it, and
received a construction according to its apparent import. It
is not too much to say that judicial interpretation has
limited its scope and ascribed to it an intent not
contemplated when it was passed. If its supposed meaning, as
understood at the time of its passage, had been upheld by
the courts, it is believed that its operation would have
been much more effective and its usefulness greatly
increased. So far as failure has attended the efforts to
give it proper administration, that failure can be mainly
attributed to differences between its apparent meaning and
the judicial interpretation which some of its provisions
have received; and the commission is of the opinion that if
the present law could be so altered as to express clearly
and beyond doubt what it was evidently intended to express
at the time of its enactment, it would prove, even