stal card, or mention to
any of our commissioners, or to a mutual friend, the name of any railway
company of which you may have heard, and so give us jurisdiction to
inquire if that company may have by chance omitted to dot an i or cross
a t in its ledgers, or whether any one of its hundreds of thousands of
agents--in the rush of a day's business, or in a shipper's hurry to
catch a train--may have named a rate not on the schedule then being
prepared at headquarters, or charged a sixpence less than some other
agent 250 miles down the line may have accepted a week ago for what
might turn out to be a fraction more mileage service in the same general
direction. No particular form is necessary. Drop in to luncheon with our
commission any day between twelve and one, and mention the name of a
railway company. The railway company may have done you no damage, nor
grieved you in any way; just mention the railroad, and we will take
jurisdiction of its private (or quasi-public) affairs. Or, if you don't
happen to have time to mention it, we will take jurisdiction anyhow, 'of
our own motion,' of any railway company whose name we find in the
Official Gazette. It really does not matter which; any one will do."
This is a fair example of the literature on the Interstate Commerce Law
paid for by railroad men.

Mr. Stickney, although a railroad president, takes an entirely different
view of the situation. He considers the law inadequate to bring about
the reforms needed. He says: "This enormous business is now in the
control of several hundred petty chieftains, who are practically
independent sovereigns, exercising functions and prerogatives in
defiance of the laws, and practically denying their amenability to the
laws of the country. If the Government would seek to bring them to terms
and compel them to recognize and obey the laws, it must use the means
necessary to accomplish the end. It must have executive officers
sufficient in number as well as armed with an adequate power and dignity
to command their respect.... The power conferred upon them [the
Interstate Commerce Commission] to enforce their judicial orders is the
power 'to scold.' The penalties of the law which the courts are in power
to impose are certainly severe, but the law has been operated for about
four years without any convictions, and yet no well-informed person is
ignorant of the fact that the law has not been obeyed. The president of
a large system is said to have re