Thus far we have omitted to refer to the provisions of the second section of the
Quarles-Cooper bill which invests the Commission with the power "to prescribe the
just relation of rates to or from common points." This feature, we think, requires
some attention, as it is perhaps the most important provision in the bill as relating
to the interests of the city of New York.
To illustrate what the effect of this provision would be, we state that, if this second
section is enacted, it will give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to fix
rates and to determine absolutely what differentials shall exist as between New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston from Chicago or any other common point; also,
what just relation of rates shall be enforced as between Chicago and New York to
common points in the South.
This means that an autocratic administrative board would be endowed with the
arbitrary power of artificially apportioning the trade of the country between such
places as it should determine. We do not think that such a body as the Interstate
Commerce Commission should be permitted to assume the power arbitrarily to so
apportion the trade of the country to nullify natural and acquired advantages in one
locality and confer the favors of trade and commerce upon other localities by their
dictum. This is precisely what they have done in at least one case and what they
attempted to do in another against New York. In the decision of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, filed April 30, 1898, in the case of the New York Produce



142 PKOPOSED AMENDMENT OF INTERSTATB-COMMEECE LAW.
