Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/88

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So wrote Justice Field in a dissenting opinion in Munn v. Illinois. In the light of the general trend of court decisions as well as of legislation, it is apparent that this view is altogether too sweeping. If the highest court in the land has occasionally set at naught the railway legislation of congress and of the states, it has also brought the railways within the condemnation of the anti-trust act in the Trans-Missouri Freight, Joint Traffic and Northern Securities cases. Moreover, adverse court decisions have in large measure been overcome by additional legislation. Probably not a single member of the Supreme Bench to-day regards the view expressed by Justice Field as good law.

There has been a marked tendency during the last decade to clothe the railway commissions of the several states with more drastic powers. Some states have even gone so far as to fix rates by legislative enactment in addition to creating a commission with mandatory power.

The consolidation of railways, the rise of freight rates in the years following 1900, "the inordinate concentration of financial power in the hands of a few privileged individuals," and the power of the newly created industrial combinations to secure concessions in rates contributed to this result. The same conditions have made for more stringent federal control of the railways. Even Massachusetts has given up her advisory commission. For years this staid old commonwealth stood out for a "weak" commission. It was confidently claimed that such a commission had all the advantages of one of the strong type minus the disadvantages. On the one hand, if backed by public opinion,