Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/335

HARVARD LAW REVIEW VOL. XXXII FEBRUARY, 1919 NO. 4 STATE POWER OVER INTRASTATE RAILROAD RATES DURING FEDERAL CONTROL IT is not proposed to discuss in this article the constitutional warrant for congressional legislation regulating intrastate rail- road rates. The Federal Control Act ^ has been passed in the ex- ercise of the war power and it is difficult to discover any substance in the suggestion that legislation under this power meets an in- superable barrier when it confronts intrastate rates. Since Con- gress may regulate intrastate railroad rates when this is necessary to the proper regulation of commerce among the states ^ it is clearly justij&ed in regulating these same rates when to do so enables it the more effectually to carry out another of the great powers expressly conferred upon it by the Constitution. That the war power is of sufficient scope to enable Congress to take over the transportation systems of the country is manifest; and since the effective operation of these systems requires that the government shall control aU transportation thereon, and not merely the transportation of men and materials needed primarily for war purposes, it follows that the government must charge for the serv- ice rendered; and the conclusion is inescapable that it is entitled to determine for itself what that charge shall be. For it is elemen- 1 Act of Congress of March 21, 1918. ' Houston East & West Texas Ry. Co. v. United States, 234 U. S. 342 (1914); American Express Co. v. Caldwell, 244 U. S. 617 (1917); Illinois Central R. R. v. Illi- nois, 24s U. S. 493 (1918); Henry Wolf Bikl6, "Federal Control of Intrastate Railroad Rates," 63 Univ. of Penn. L. Rev. 69.