 Although O'Hara influenced the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, asserting that Congress could regulate passenger cars as well as freight traffic, he was unable to gain language requiring enforcement of integrated passenger seating for the railroads.Congress allowed a loophole permitting segregated seating, although the railroads' interstate transportation was under federal oversight and should have been enforced constitutional rights.That year, O'Hara succeeded in amending the appropriations bill for the District of Columbia (which was then administered by the US Congress), in order to require that male and female teachers doing the same work and having the same certificates be paid equivalent salaries.