Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/343

FEDERAL CONTROL OF INTRASTATE RAILROAD RATES 307 amended, and said findings and orders shall be enforced as pro- vided in said act." With all these careful and specific directions as to how rates, etc., initiated by the President may be reviewed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, it is almost inconceivable that Congress could have intended that such rates should be subject to review by state commissions unrestricted by any directions as to procedure or remedial measures. This conclusion seems inescapable when it is remembered that the powers of the state commissions differ in many, and frequently in material, respects from those of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Without seeking further illus- trations it is sufficient to point out that many state commissions may issue orders effective for a period substantially greater than the two-year period to which the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion is restricted. Thus in one case a state commission required the maintenance of certain passenger fares for ten years.^^ And it is not beheved that any sound argimient can be based upon the contention that the Interstate Commerce Commission is empowered to make findings and orders authorized by the Act to Regulate Commerce, and that these must necessarily be restricted to interstate rates, etc. This provision defines the remedies which the commission may apply, but enlarges the scope of these reme- dies. Since the Federal Control Act brings within the Jurisdiction of the commission new rates, etc., it is only natural that there should be a definition of the remedies which it may apply — an extension of power similar in essential character to other enlarge- ments of the commission's authority brought about by amend- ments to the Act to Regulate Commerce. But, in addition to these considerations which relate primarily to procedure, it is significant that the act establishes, as has been pointed out, its own standard to which rates, etc., initiated by the President must conform, and necessarily this standard supersedes all state standards unless the act itself saves them.^^ Apart, how- ^ P. R. R. i;. Public Service Commission, 126 Md. 59, 82 (1915). In fact, in Detroit & Mackinac Ry. Co. v. Michigan Veneer Co., 000 U. S. 000 (decided November 18, 1918), the court holds that "There is nothing to hinder a State from providing that after a judicial inquiry into the validity of such an order, it shall be binding upon the parties until changed." " Northern Pacific Ry. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 370 (1912); Michigan Central R. R, V. Vreeland, 227 U. S. 59 (1913); So. Ry. v. R. R. Commission, 236 U. S. 439 (1915).