Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/167



to compel water lines to report to it regarding intrastate as well as interstate business.
 * mission by deciding that it has power

The court of commerce has been subjected to sharp attack in congress because of a series of decisions over-*turning work of the interstate commerce commission, and a bill for the abolishment of the tribunal is now pending in the house on a favorable report from a committee.

While the case before the court concerned immediately only water lines, the government attorneys declared that the defeat of the commission in this case would mean that railroads also need not report regarding intrastate business and the commission's whole system of gathering reports relative to commerce would be worthless.

The order in question required reports regarding operating expenses and operating revenues of water lines, and affected principally lines on the great lakes. The commerce court held that the commission had power to require reports only regarding traffic carried under joint arrangement with railroad carriers, but not as to purely intrastate and port-to-port business.

Justice Day said that a mistake had been made by the commerce court in confusing knowledge of intrastate commerce with regulation of it. He said it was within the power of the commission to require a "showdown of the whole business", intrastate as well as interstate. Justices Lurton and Lamar dissented.

(2)

Power of the Interstate Commerce commission to force "inside information" from steamship lines as to their earnings was affirmed today by the Supreme Court. The proposed scope of the commission's inquiry into the steamship business of the great lakes