Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/367

339 FEDERAL RESTRAINTS. 339 in Stone v. Farmers* Loan & Trust Co.,^ that words of positive grant, or those equivalent in law, were necessary. In Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. ,2 a majority of the court, through Waite, C. J., held, as before, that the State had authority to fix maximum rates of charges for transportation by railroad companies when the State was not expressly forbidden to do so by their charter contracts. The doctrine of the case, how- ever, was somewhat modified by the statement that the extent of the power of the State was not unlimited, and was a subject, under certain circumstances, for the determination of the court. The opinion said: — " From what has thus been said, it is not to be inferred that this power of limitation or regulation is itself without limit. This power to regulate is not a power to destroy, and limitation is not the equivalent of confiscation. Under pretence of regulating fares and freights, the State cannot require a railroad corporation to carry persons and property without reward ; neither can it do that which in law amounts to a taking of private property for public use, without just compensation or without due process of law." Judge Harlan and Judge Field dissented, as in Ruggles v, Illinois, supra, although upon somewhat special grounds, and not for reasons here important. In Dow V. Beidelman ^ it was decided that a statute of Arkansas, fixing at three cents a mile the maximum rate of fare upon a rail- road, was not a taking of property without due process of law, even if, under an enforcement of such a statute, the net yearly in- come of the railroad fell to less than i% on the original cost of the road, and to only»a little more than 2% on the amount of the bonded debt ; that is to say, at least if there were no proof of the cost of this bonded debt, or the amount of the capital stock of the reorganized corporation, or the price paid by such corporation for the road. The case was put upon the distinct ground that the legal limitation of charge had not been proved to be unreasonable, and is a distinct departure from the doctrine of the Granger Cases. In Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota,* a statute of Minnesota was held unconstitutional, which provided that the rates of charges for the transportation of property recom- 1 116 U. S. 307. 8 125 U. S. 680. a Ibid. * 134 U. S. 418.