readjustment of the tariff. So long
as railroad companies are permitted to resort to injunctions and effect
other delays rendered possible through the machinery of the courts, to
prevent for years the enforcement of tariffs prescribed by
administrative authorities, so long will the public be at their mercy.
So long as they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by a
judicial contest, it will be their policy to delay through the courts
the enforcement of any tariff, whether prescribed by legislature or by
an authorized commission, that falls below their standard. It is not to
be understood that the acts of railroad commissioners should never be
subject to a judicial view. If such boards clearly exceed their
authority or are otherwise guilty of maladministration, if they violate
constitutional rights, then railroad companies, if injured by their
acts, should be permitted to seek redress in the courts; but they should
not be permitted to nullify an official tariff by legal maneuvers. It is
clearly not within the province of the courts to make rates or to lay
down rules to be followed by those to whom the law has delegated the
power to make them, nor should the courts aid the railroads in any
attempt to nullify an official tariff that has been legally promulgated.
A tariff prepared by sworn and disinterested officials is more likely to
be just than one prepared by interested railroad men, and railroad
companies should be compelled to adopt it and continue it in use until
it is amended or revoked by legal authority.

Individual shippers are powerless as against strong corporations.
Railroads apply to the courts for what they are pleased to term redress,
and in the meantime refuse with impunity to accept an official tariff;
but the shipper has no protection: he must pay their rates or go out of
business. What reason can be assigned why the weaker should thus be
discriminated against? A promulgation of a tariff prepared by a
commission is equivalent to a declaration on the part of these officials
that the rates or some of the rates charged by the railroads are
unreasonably high. The railroad, in applying to the courts for
protection, claims that the tariff prescribed by the commission is
unreasonably low. Both tariffs are therefore impeached, one being that
of an interested private company, the other that of a disinterested
public board. It is evident that, even if the people should see fit to
give the courts jurisdictio