United States Ex Rel. Attorney General of the United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co.

Headnotes

1. Constitutional Law — Statutory Construction When a statute is reasonably susceptible of two constructions, one of which would render it unconstitutional and the other valid, a court must adopt the construction that saves the statute's constitutionality. Knights Templar Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U.S. 197
2. Constitutional Law — Avoidance of Constitutional Questions Where a statute is susceptible of two constructions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise and by the other of which such questions are avoided, a court's duty is to adopt the latter construction. Harriman v. Interstate Com. Comm., 211 U.S. 407
3. Statutory Interpretation — Judicial Construction A limitation on a statute's operation, even if reasonable, cannot be judicially engrafted if it is not expressed in the statute, because doing so would be pure judicial legislation. United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366 (1909)
4. Statutory Interpretation — Harmonizing Conflicting Provisions Where ambiguity exists in a statute, a court must restrain the wider and doubtful provisions so as to make them accord with the narrower and more reasonable provisions, thereby harmonizing the statute.
5. Statutory Interpretation — Implied Prohibitions and Constitutional Doubts A prohibition in an act of Congress will not be extended to include a subject where the extension raises grave constitutional questions as to the power of Congress, particularly where one branch of that body rejected an amendment specifically including such subject within the prohibition.
6. Constitutional Law — Standard of Constitutionality In construing a statute, the power of the lawmaking body to enact it, and not the consequences resulting from the enactment, is the criterion of constitutionality.
7. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause of the Hepburn Act The commodities clause of the Hepburn Act does not prohibit a railway company from transporting commodities in interstate commerce merely because the company has manufactured, mined, or produced them, owned them in whole or in part, or had a direct or indirect interest in them, irrespective of the carrier's relation to the commodities at the time of transportation. Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584
8. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Stock Ownership The provision of the commodities clause relating to direct or indirect interest does not embrace an interest a carrier may have in a producing corporation as a result of the carrier's ownership of stock in that corporation, provided the corporation was organized in good faith. Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584
9. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Purpose When all its provisions are harmoniously construed, the commodities clause has solely the object of preventing carriers engaged in interstate commerce from being associated in interest, at the time of transportation, with the commodities transported. Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584
10. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Prohibited Circumstances The commodities clause prohibits railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce from transporting commodities in such commerce only under the following circumstances: (a) when the commodity has been manufactured, mined, or produced by the railway company or under its authority and the company has not in good faith parted with its interest before the act of transportation; (b) when the railway company owns the commodity to be transported in whole or in part; and (c) when the railway company at the time of transportation has an interest, direct or indirect, in a legal sense in the commodity. The prohibition in (c) does not apply to commodities manufactured, mined, produced, or owned by a corporation merely because a railway company is a stockholder in that corporation. Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584
11. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Stock Ownership as Interest Ownership of stock by a railway company in a producing company does not cause the railway company, as owner of the stock, to have a legal interest in the commodity manufactured or produced by the producing corporation.
12. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power As construed, the commodities clause is a regulation of commerce inherently within the power of Congress to enact. New Haven Railroad v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U.S. 361
13. Constitutional Law — Due Process A contention that the commodities clause, if applied to preexisting rights, would operate to take property of railroad companies in violation of the due process provision of the Fifth Amendment, based on the assumption that the clause prohibited and restricted in accordance with the Government's construction, is not tenable as to the act as now construed, which merely enforces a regulation of commerce compelling carriers to dissociate themselves from the products they carry and does not prohibit where the carrier is not associated with the commodity carried.
14. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Uniformity The constitutional power of Congress to make regulations for interstate commerce is not limited by any requirement that the regulations apply to all commodities alike; an exception of one commodity from a general regulation does not necessarily render a statute unconstitutional as discriminating between carriers.
15. Statutory Interpretation — Separability of Penalty Provisions Where a provision for penalties is separable from the provisions for regulations, a court will not consider the constitutionality of the penalty provisions in a suit brought by the Government to enjoin carriers from violating the regulations and in which no penalties are sought to be recovered.
16. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Railroad Companies A company originally chartered principally for mining purposes that is now engaged as a common carrier by rail in the transportation of coal in the channels of interstate commerce is a railroad company within the purview of the commodities clause and is subject to its provisions as construed.
17. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Limits The power of Congress to regulate commerce does not necessarily embrace authority to control or prohibit the mining, manufacturing, production, or ownership of an article or commodity merely because it may become the subject of interstate commerce.
18. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Implied Prohibitions If the right to regulate commerce does not extend to controlling or prohibiting mining, manufacturing, production, or ownership, it cannot be impliedly made to embrace those subjects by forbidding a railroad company engaged in interstate commerce from carrying lawful articles or commodities because, at some time prior to the transportation, it had manufactured, mined, produced, or owned them.
19. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — State Authority It is a question whether the adoption of the Constitution and the grant of power to Congress to regulate commerce deprived the States of authority to endow a carrier with the attribute of producing as well as transporting particular commodities, a power the States have freely exercised from the beginning.
20. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Federal Authorization It is a question whether, although the Government of the United States has in the past for public purposes expressly or impliedly authorized the manufacture, mining, production, and carriage of commodities by one and the same railway corporation, such exertion of power was beyond the scope of Congress's authority, or was merely a license subject at any time to be revoked and completely destroyed by a regulation of commerce.
21. Constitutional Law — Judicial Review The question of the reasonableness of a statute is for the legislature, not for the courts.
22. Constitutional Law — Exclusive Federal Subjects If a statute pertains to a subject exclusively committed to Congress, the statute is within the scope of constitutional power. The Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321, 357; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 344; The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557, 566
23. Constitutional Law — Supremacy Clause Congressional non-action lends no color of authority or validity to state regulations of anything properly pertaining to interstate commerce, and when the federal power has been exercised, it is the exercise of the supreme will, and any conflicting state regulation must give way. Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 100; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196, 199; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 422
24. Constitutional Law — Supremacy Clause Not even a State, and still less one of its artificial creations, can stand in the way of the enforcement of an act of Congress constitutionally passed under its authority to regulate commerce; corporations created by the States are as much subordinate to the powers of Congress in the regulation of interstate commerce as if they had been created by acts of Congress. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 333; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 427, 429, 432, 435
25. Constitutional Law — Supremacy Clause A State cannot, by creating a corporation and conferring certain powers upon it, forestall the operation of subsequently enacted federal laws, because otherwise the constitutional provision that laws made pursuant to the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land could be nullified at any time. Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U.S. 364; Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U.S. 259, 272; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U.S. 471
26. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Prohibitions Prohibitions contained in a statute do not prevent it from constituting legislation that Congress may enact under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
27. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Foreign Commerce Analogy Congressional power over commerce among the States is analogous to the same power over foreign commerce; recognized powers as to foreign commerce—such as laying an embargo as to products of other nations in a time of peace, and the power to forbid and punish introductions of coins of foreign nations—illustrate Congressional power to forbid transportation of commodities from State to State under circumstances requiring such prohibition in the national interest. Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U.S. 57; Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 622, 630; United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 560, 566
28. Transportation Law — Railroads Interstate railroads are peculiarly subject to regulation by reason of their performance of public functions and duties; they are vested with public rights to enable them to serve public interests as common carriers, and Congress has the power to divorce their public duties as such public servants from their private interest in carrying their own products. New Haven R.R. v. Interstate Com. Comm., 200 U.S. 361; Cherokee Nation v. South Kansas R.R. Co., 135 U.S. 657
29. Constitutional Law — Judicial Review Arguments ab inconvenienti are not to be considered unless the language of the act is ambiguous, and the courts are not at liberty to declare an act void because in their opinion it is opposed to a spirit supposed to pervade the Constitution but not expressed in its words. Ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38, 44; Cooley, Const. Lim. (5th ed.) 205; People v. Fisher, 24 Wend. 215, 220
30. Constitutional Law — Presumption of Validity There is a presumption in favor of the validity of legislation, and only when the question is free from reasonable doubt will the Supreme Court hold an act of Congress to be in violation of the Constitution. Nicol v. Ames, 173 U.S. 509; Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 126
31. Constitutional Law — Judicial Review For protection against unjust or unwise legislation within the limits of recognized legislative power, the people must look to the polls and not to the courts; it would be an abuse of judicial power for courts to attempt to interfere with the constitutional discretion of the legislature, and if power exists, it is to be assumed that legislative discretion has been properly exercised. Covington Bridge Case, 105 U.S. 470, 482; Cooley, Const. Lim. (6th ed.) 220
32. Antitrust & Competition Law — Legislative Object The prevention of monopoly has long been a legitimate object of legislation. Pearsall v. Great Northern R.R. Co., 161 U.S. 646, 676; Northern Securities Case, 193 U.S. 341
33. Constitutional Law — Commerce Clause The term "commerce," as used in the Constitution, embraces the instrumentalities by which commerce is carried on, and a railroad engaged in interstate commerce is necessarily an instrumentality of interstate commerce. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197; Railroad Co. v. Fuller, 17 Wall. 500, 508; Coxe Brothers Co. v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co., 4 I.C.C. Rep. 468
34. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Highways of Commerce The highways of commerce are, in a sense, the public property of the Nation and subject to all requisite legislation by Congress; the power of Congress over the highways of commerce necessarily includes the power to keep them open and free from any obstruction, and in this regard Congress has all the powers that existed in the States before the adoption of the Constitution. Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 724; In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564, 586
35. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Combinations If combinations interfere with the laws of free competition in interstate commerce and cannot be effectively dealt with under the antitrust act, Congress can provide another and more effective remedy. Sturgis v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 315; United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, 396; Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 440, 441; In re Jackson, 14 Blatch. 250
36. Constitutional Law — Due Process The commodities clause does not violate the guarantees of the Fifth Amendment or any other constitutional guarantees; the prohibition of the commodities clause is not arbitrary, and the statute is not on its face a deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law in the sense in which the phrase is ordinarily used. Gulf, Col. S.F. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 155; A., T. S.F.R.R. v. Matthews, 174 U.S. 96; Clark v. Kansas City, 178 U.S. 114
37. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Conditional Prohibitions It is as proper an exercise of power under the commerce clause to forbid, conditionally, shipments of a certain class or description as to forbid discrimination. Joint Traffic Association Case, 171 U.S. 571; Addyston Pipe Case, 175 U.S. 211
38. Constitutional Law — Due Process When it is claimed that a legislative act is inhibited by the due process clause as applied to property, there must be an interest amounting to a vested right of property; if a right claimed is not of the character of a vested right of property, then it is merely an inchoate right—a privilege. Rights are vested when the right to enjoyment, present or prospective, has become the property of some particular person or persons as a present interest. No right can be vested as a result of action which invades the domain of congressional power to regulate commerce, whether Congress has already acted or yet withholds action on the subject. 8 Cyc. L. Proc. 894; Cooley, Const. Lim. 438, 465; Pearsall v. Great Northern R.R. Co., 161 U.S. 646, 673
39. Constitutional Law — Retrospective Legislation Retrospective federal laws, unless ex post facto, are not within the due process clause or any other prohibition of the Constitution, however repugnant to the principles of sound legislation. Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U.S. 445; Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420; Satterlee v. Mathewson, 2 Pet. 380
40. Constitutional Law — Estoppel Against Government No estoppel can be asserted against constitutional legislation based upon long acquiescence in the use made of coal lands and their output by railroads on the part of the United States, and Congress could not have bartered away or estopped itself from exercising any of its constitutional powers. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Kentucky, 161 U.S. 677, 689; Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U.S. 364
41. Constitutional Law — Takings The commodities clause does not violate the provision that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U.S. 364; Cooley, Const. Lim. (6th ed.) 473
42. Constitutional Law — Penalties — Excessive Fines The commodities clause is not open to the objection that the penalties imposed for violations are of such magnitude and so unduly excessive and extortionate as to be substantially destructive of the property and franchises of the carriers affected thereby, nor does it constitute a denial of the equal protection of the law. Cooley, Const. Lim. 402; Coffey v. Harlan County, 204 U.S. 659, 665
43. Constitutional Law — Port Preferences The commodities clause does not give a preference to the ports of one State over those of another, contrary to Art. I, § 9, clause 6 of the Constitution. Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U.S. 56, 80; Pennsylvania v. Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, 435
44. Constitutional Law — Full Faith and Credit The commodities clause does not deny full faith and credit to the public acts of a State contrary to Art. IV, § 1 of the Constitution; the Full Faith and Credit Clause did not confer any power or jurisdiction upon the States, but merely assured the recognition of their acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within the respective territory of each of them. Story, Const., § 1313; Bissell v. Briggs, 9 Mass. 462, 467; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312
45. Constitutional Law — Privileges and Immunities The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not deny persons any privileges or immunities of citizens of the States contrary to Art. IV, § 2, subd. 1; a corporation acquires by its charter no extraterritorial powers, immunities, or privileges, even if Art. IV, § 2, subd. 1 was intended to apply to corporations, and that clause has always been held a prohibition against state, not federal, action.
46. Constitutional Law — Reserved Powers The commodities clause does not invade the reserved rights of the people or of the States contrary to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments or any other provisions of the Constitution.
47. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — State Charters If constitutional authority for the commodities clause is found, no state charter can furnish to a defendant any protection or defense in an action brought for its enforcement; no relations assumed by individuals, nor rules governing such relations inter sese, whether made by the individuals themselves or by a State, can stand in the way, where an issue arises between them and the Government, to prevent the enforcement of a constitutional law.
48. Constitutional Law — Commerce Clause The right of a State to create a corporation and vest it with certain powers does not carry with it the right to project either the powers of the State or of the corporation across state lines and thus invade the domain of interstate commerce, which is the sole province of Congress to regulate and protect; each State has plenary local powers over its own territory and its own corporations, but a State, in exercising sovereignty over a corporation it created, may not prevent or embarrass Congress's exercise of any power entrusted to it by the Constitution. W.U. Tel. Co. v. Pendleton, 122 U.S. 347, 357, 358; Railroad Co. v. Maryland, 21 Wall. 456, 473
49. Constitutional Law — Contracts Clause The commodities clause does not impair the obligation of contracts; contractual obligations, even if sanctioned by state laws, may not be asserted by defendants to defeat a federal law passed in the exercise of constitutionally conferred power. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 347; New Haven R.R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U.S. 361; Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U.S. 364
50. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — "Interest" Defined The defendant companies had an "interest" in the coal transported within the meaning of the word "interest" as used in the commodities clause; the interest may not be a legal interest but it is nonetheless real and substantial, as where a railroad company has a real and substantial interest in a corporation or the property of a corporation whose stock it holds. Humphreys v. McKissock, 140 U.S. 304, 312; Burton v. United States, 202 U.S. 344; Pullman Car Co. v. Missouri Pacific Co., 115 U.S. 587, 597
51. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Timber Exception The exception in the commodities clause of "timber and the manufactured products thereof" does not render the statute unconstitutional. Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.S. 540, discussed and distinguished
52. Statutory Interpretation — Purpose The purpose of a statute is gathered from the history of the times and the conditions to be remedied; the purpose of the commodities clause was to prevent discrimination by railroads engaged in interstate commerce against shippers in the interest of themselves or persons or corporations under their control or in which they were interested, and Congress's intent was to free interstate transportation from dangers arising from self-interest on the part of carriers.
53. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Rebating Temptation The temptation to engage in secret rebating and other favoritism in interstate coal transportation is as great where a carrier owns a majority of the stock of a coal mining company as where it directly mines coal.
54. Statutory Interpretation — Reasonable Construction The statute is to be given a reasonable construction to accomplish the purpose of Congress in its enactment; ordinarily a railroad would have no such interest in transporting coal for a subsequent purchaser from its vendee, and such a case would not be within the spirit and purpose of the act, although it might come within its letter.
55. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Inherent Right The grant of power to regulate commerce recognizes the existence of a right to carry it on, derived from some other and independent source; commerce is an inherent right possessed by every citizen, and a prohibition that does not regulate the right but denies and destroys it must rest upon a power different from that granted by a permission to regulate.
56. Constitutional Law — Property Rights The right of property is secured to every citizen of the United States under and against the Government by the Constitution of the United States.
57. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Limits on Prohibition The right to regulate transportation so as to compel conformity to all reasonable rules the legislature may prescribe does not include the right to prohibit transportation where such rules are complied with; neither intercourse between the States involving carriage of persons or property, nor transactions of sale and purchase involving a delivery, can be forbidden unless the person against whom the prohibition goes violates some law enacted properly in exercise of the power to regulate. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 199; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196; Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161
58. Constitutional Law — Foreign Commerce Foreign commerce is the intercourse between two countries, which often may be hostile; in determining the extent of and limitations upon foreign commerce, recourse is had to the law of nations, and one nation, for the protection of its citizens and its property, may put an embargo upon trade and fetter intercourse.
59. Constitutional Law — Commerce Clause It is a fundamental right of every owner of property in one State to sell it to citizens of another State, and to have the same, when thus sold, transported; however the intercourse may be regulated, such regulation must proceed upon the concession of the inability to deprive altogether of the right.
60. Constitutional Law — Tenth Amendment Any Federal statute which has for its purpose the destruction of title to property or of the enjoyment of property, title to which is vested by the law of the State in a third person, trenches upon the reserved right under the Tenth Amendment. United States v. Fox, 94 U.S. 315
61. Constitutional Law — Due Process The power possessed by Congress to regulate commerce must be so exercised as not to destroy the right to dispose of property, or to make legal contracts concerning the use or transportation thereof; to forbid a coal company to sell its coal to the citizens of another State, or to cause the same to be transported into such State, is to deprive it of its "liberty" because of the deprivation of the power to use its property in accordance with its legal right. McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27; Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., 199 U.S. 401; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 589
62. Constitutional Law — Takings To destroy the exercise of a company's franchises is, practically, to take its property as completely as though it were physically seized. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623; United States v. Lynah, 188 U.S. 445
63. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Industrial Corporations A corporation organized primarily to produce and handle anthracite coal, possessing railroad powers merely as an incident to that primary purpose, is not embraced within the prohibition of the commodities clause; the term "railroad company" as used in the commodities clause does not apply to every corporation which operates a railroad. Corporations operating railroad mileage incidental to their business may be charged with the duties of a common carrier with respect to such mileage, yet are not thereby "railroad companies" within the meaning of the commodities clause.
64. Statutory Interpretation — Construction to Avoid Nullifying State Policy A court should not unnecessarily construe an act of Congress so as to nullify a policy deliberately adopted and carried out by two States; where an act of Congress was jointly entered upon by two States and their legislation is irrepealable by either State, the act should not be construed to nullify that policy.
65. Constitutional Law — Confiscation Applying a statute in an unnecessary manner so as to destroy property rights of great magnitude is impermissible; excluding a party's coal from the only practical channel of interstate transportation is confiscatory because it largely destroys the value of the party's coal and coal lands, and excluding interstate coal traffic from a party's railways is confiscatory because it largely destroys the value of those railways and equipment.
66. Constitutional Law — Avoidance of Doubtful Constitutionality Even if unconstitutionality were merely doubtful rather than clear, it would be the duty of the court to avoid an unnecessary construction of the statute which would develop such constitutional doubts. Harriman v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 211 U.S. 407
67. Constitutional Law — Fundamental Rights — Purchasers A commodities clause that prohibits or restricts purchases by lawful purchasers or consumers of commodities is unconstitutional as contrary to fundamental and unalienable rights reserved to citizens by the Federal Constitution; citizens have the right to buy food, fuel, or other harmless necessaries of life, in any State they please, from anyone they choose, so long as the purchases are lawful in that State.
68. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Regulation vs. Prohibition The Federal Government may regulate, but not prohibit, the carriage of necessaries to interstate markets.
69. Constitutional Law — Fifth Amendment — Discrimination Congress may not enact a partial and unjust law discriminating between purchasers of timber fuel and purchasers of coal, or between stockholders and bondholders in common carriers owning timber lands and those owning coal lands, without violating the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Fifth Amendment
70. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Intrastate Production If literally obeyed, the only possible effect of the commodities clause upon coal is upon the mining or production thereof, and thus the clause does not regulate interstate commerce but undertakes to regulate the antecedent intrastate production of coal, contrary to the Constitution.
71. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Judicial Notice The constitutional question must be considered with reference to the Constitution as a whole and in relation to the agreed facts of the cases; relevant industrial conditions that are matters of common knowledge may be judicially noticed.
72. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — State Policy Mere suggestions of inconvenience or harm from enforcing a statute are irrelevant to determining Congress's constitutional power to enact it; Congress's power to regulate commerce is ever enduring, and its right to exert that power at all times in its plenitude must remain free from restrictions and limitations arising from state laws, whether enacted before or after Congress exerts its lawful power to regulate.
73. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Dissociation from Commodities The power of Congress to regulate commerce may constitutionally be exerted so as to compel a railroad company engaged in interstate commerce to dissociate itself in interest from the commodities it transports in interstate commerce, even where existing state laws give the railroad a lawful right of ownership or association with the commodity.
74. Constitutional Law — Commerce Power — Grave Constitutional Questions Whether Congress's power to regulate commerce embraces authority to control or prohibit the mining, manufacturing, production, or ownership of an article or commodity, not because of some inherent quality of the commodity but simply because it may become the subject of interstate commerce, is a grave constitutional question the Court may not avoid determining if the Government's construction of the commodities clause is well founded.
75. General — Interstate Commerce — Commodities Clause — Four Prohibitions The commodities clause disjunctively applies four generic prohibitions, forbidding a railroad carrier from transporting in interstate commerce articles or commodities (1) which it has manufactured, mined, or produced; (2) which have been so mined, manufactured, or produced under its authority; (3) which it owns in whole or in part; and (4) in which it has an interest, direct or indirect. The two prohibitions relating to manufacturing, mining, or production and the ownership resulting therefrom, if literally construed, are not confined to the time when a carrier transports the commodities concerned, and hence the prohibitions attach and operate. The prohibitions concerning ownership, in whole or in part, and interest, direct or indirect, refer to the time of the transportation of the commodities and do not control commodities if, at the time of transportation, they are not owned in whole or in part by the transporting carrier, or if the carrier then has no interest, direct or indirect, in them. Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584
76. Statutory Interpretation — Construction — Irreconcilable Conflict The statute cannot be construed literally without bringing about an irreconcilable conflict between its provisions, and therefore some rule of construction is essential to be adopted so that the statute may have a harmonious operation; in view of the ambiguity and confusion in the statute, the duty of interpreting should not be exerted so as to cause one portion of the statute to extend and enlarge another portion, but the wider and more doubtful prohibitions should be restrained so as to harmonize with the narrow and more reasonable provisions.
77. Statutory Interpretation — Purpose — Common Purpose of Prohibitions The provisions as to manufacturing, mining, and production, while possibly somewhat redundant, were expressed for the purpose of leaving no possible room for the implication that ownership resulting from manufacture, mining, production, etc., was not intended to be included; the prohibitions should be treated as having a common purpose: the dissociation of railroad companies prior to transportation from articles or commodities, whether the association resulted from manufacture, mining, production, or ownership, or interest, direct or indirect.
78. Statutory Interpretation — Postponement of Effective Date A postponement of a statutory clause's effective date does not compel the inference that Congress contemplated far-reaching and radical effects; it is reasonable to infer