ce of
the last six years. The act to regulate commerce was not
framed to meet a temporary emergency, nor in obedience to a
transient and spasmodic sentiment. The people will not
tolerate a return to the injustice and wrong-doing which
inevitably occurs when no correction is undertaken and no
regulation attempted. The evils of unrestricted management
will not be permanently endured, and legal remedies will
continue to be sought until they are amply provided. The
present statute, however crude and inadequate in many
respects, was the constitutional exercise of most important
powers and the legislative expression of a great and
wholesome principle. Its fundamental and pervading purpose
is to secure equality of treatment. It assumes that the
railroads are engaged in a public service, and requires that
service to be impartially performed. It asserts the right of
every citizen to use the agencies which the carrier provides
on equal terms with all his fellows, and finds an invasion
of that right in every unauthorized exemption from charges
commonly imposed.

"The railroad is justly regarded as a public facility which
every person may enjoy at pleasure, a common right to which
all are admitted and from which none are excluded. The
essence of this right is equality, and its enjoyment can be
complete only when it is secured on like conditions by all
who desire its benefits. The railroad exists by virtue of
authority proceeding from the State, and thus differs in its
essential nature from every form of private enterprise. The
carrier is invested with extraordinary powers, which are
delegated by the sovereign, and thereby performs a
governmental function. The favoritism, partiality and
exactions which the law was designed to prevent resulted, in
large measure, from a general misapprehension of the nature
of transportation and its vital relation to commercial and
industrial progress. So far from being a private possession,
it differs from every species of property, and is in no
sense a commodity. Its office is peculiar, for it is
essentially public. The railroad, therefore, can rightfully
do nothing which the State itself might not do if it
performed this public service through its own agents instead