ndard Oil Company with the railroads were placed
upon the records and these showed that all the worst suspicions
regarding this practice were justified. This disclosure made the
railroad rebate one of the most familiar facts in American industrial
life; and in consequence a demand arose for Federal legislation that
would definitely make the practice a crime and also for some kind
of Federal supervision to do effectively the work which the state
commissions had failed to do.

By this time it was clear enough that the only hope of adequate
regulation lay with the Federal Government. Congressman Reagan, of
Texas, had for years been pushing a bill to regulate interstate commerce
and to prohibit unjust discriminations by common carriers; other
measures periodically made their appearance in the Senate; but the
Houses had been unable to agree and nothing had been done.

Two facts presently gave great impetus to the movement; in 1886 the
United States Supreme Court, reversing its previous decision, decided
that no State could fix rates for railroad lines outside its own
borders, in other words, that interstate rates were exclusively within
the jurisdiction of the Federal authority *; and a Senate committee,
under the chairmanship of Shelby B. Cullom, conducted an investigation
of railroad conditions which made clear the need of immediate reform.
As a consequence, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which
received President Cleveland's signature on February 4, 1887. This
measure specifically made illegal rebates, pools, higher charges for
short than for long hauls (when the hauls in question were upon the same
road); it required railroads to file their tariffs, and it established
a commission of five members, who had powers of investigation, including
the right to make the companies produce their books. This commission
received power to establish systems of accounting and the like, but it
had no prerogative to fix rates. Inadequate as this measure seemed to
the radical element, it was generally hailed as marking the beginning
of an era in the Federal control not only of railroads but of other
corporations, and this impression was increased by the high character of
the men whom President Cleveland appointed to the first board.

* Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company vs. Illinois, 118
U.S. 557.

The Interstate Commerce Commission lasted essentially in this form
for nearly twenty years. On the whole it