Mr. Bacon. 1 make that a part of my statement. It is as follows:

I know of no case wherein Judge Cooley aaid the Commission had no authority
to prescribe a reasonable rate when an existing rate had been found to be unreason-
able. During all of the time Judge Cooley was on the Commission it was believed
that the Commission had this authority and he joined in the orders forbidding car-
riers not to charge more than the reasonable rate shown by the evidence in cases
involving that question.
A case decided by the Commission in an opinion by Commissioner Schoonmaker
has been cited as holding in 1887 that the Commission had no authority to prescribe
reasonable rates. This was the case of Thatcher against the Delaware and Hudson
Canal Company (1 I. C. C. Rep., 152). But that case did not involve the reason-
ableness of rates. The complainant shipped grain from his elevator at Schenectady,
N. Y., to Boston and Boston points. He desired that the rates for that service
should be less than those from stations on the same line nearer to destination. In
other words, he wanted an order compelling the roads to depart from the principle
of the long and short haul clause. The Commission said it might authorize the car-
riers upon their appUcation to depart from the rule of that clause, but that it had no
power to compel such departure.
