Every violation of this act was made punishable by a penalty of from
$100 to $500.

Though Congress had asserted the right to regulate commerce among the
States, it had made previous to 1873 very limited use of that power. In
the midst of the Granger movement the Senate of the United States passed
on the 26th day of March, 1873, the following resolution:

"_Resolved_, That the Select Committee on Transportation
Routes to the Seaboard be authorized to sit at such places
as they may designate during the recess, and to investigate
and report upon the subject of transportation between the
interior and the seaboard; that they have power to employ a
clerk and stenographer, and to send for persons and
papers...."

The committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Windom, discharged their
duty with great fidelity, and submitted their report to the Senate
during its next regular session. They declared that the defects and
abuses of the then existing systems of transportation were insufficient
facilities, unfair discrimination and extortionate charges. As the
principal causes of such excessive rates they assigned stock watering,
capitalization of surplus earnings, construction rings, general
extravagance and corruption in railway management, and combinations and
consolidations of railway companies. The committee were of the opinion
that the promotion of competition would not permanently remedy the
existing evils, and laid it down as a general rule that competition
among railways ends in combination and in enhanced rates. As expedient
and practical remedies for the existing evils they recommended the
following measures:

1. Direct Congressional regulation of railway transportation, under the
power to regulate commerce among the several States.

2. Indirect regulation and promotion of competition, through the agency
of one or more lines of railway, to be owned and controlled by the
Government.

3. The improvement of natural water-ways and the construction of
artificial channels of water communication.

The report was accepted and considered, but there the matter rested, so
far as the practical results were concerned.

In 1878 Mr. John H. Reagan, of Texas, introduced in the House of
Representatives a bill for an act to regulate railroad companies engaged
in interstate commerce. This may be said to have been the first real
interstate commerce bill before Congress. It was a progressive,