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The positions taken in this brief are fully supported by the weight of authority.

The deliberate and solemn declarations of] the body constituted by Congress itself to supervise the conditions of interstate com- Kellogg v. Larkin, 3 Pinney, 150, 56 Am. merce and the actions of the various rail- Dec. 164; Leslie v. Lorillard, 110 N. Y. 519, road systems in respect thereto prove every 1 L. R. A. 456; People v. North River Sugar material assertion made in this brief, of the Ref. Co. 121 N. Y. 582, 9 L. R. A. 33; Collins unmeasured mischiefs of unfair competition v. Locke, L. R. 4 App. Cas. 674; National in rates, and of the inability of repressing Benefit Co. v. Union Hospital Co. 45 Minn. them in any other way than by the making and observance of such agreements. Agreements in all fundamental respects similar to the one in question have been in force during the whole history of railroad competition, and in some instances going much further in doing away with competition by actually pooling traffic or its receipts; but will anyone say that commerce, the interchange of commodities, has been thereby restrained, that there has been less of buying and selling by reason of them? Everyone must admit that trade and commerce have been prodigiously facilitated by them, and consequently increased.

The apprehensions of monopoly and oppression with which we are dealing have no foundation in reason, or in experience.

The agreement which this action seeks to condemn is not, by reason of any restraint effected by it upon competition, or otherwise, a contract in restraint of trade or commerce, but is on the contrary, highly needful to, and promotive of, both.

275, 11 L. R. A. 437; Perkins v. Lyman, 9 Mass. 522; Manchester & L. R. Co. v. Concord R. Corp. 66 N. H. 100, 9 L. R. A. 689, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 319; Judge Cooley's article in the Railway Review, April 26, 1884, on the subject of Traffic Pooling; Mitchel v. Reynolds, 1 Smith, Lead. Cas. pt. 2, p. 508; Perkins v. Lyman, 11 Mass. 76, 6 Am. Dec. 158; Pierce v. Fuller, 8 Mass. 223, 5 Am. Dec. 102; Bowser v. Bliss, 7 Blatchf. 344, 43 Am. Dec. 93; Grundy v. Edwards, 7 J. J. Marsh. 368, 23 Am. Dec. 409; Morgan v. Perhamus, 36 Ohio St. 517, 38 Am. Rep. 607; Pike v. Thomas, 4 Bibb. 486. 7 Am. Dec. 741; Morse, Twist Drill & Mach. Co., v. Morse, 103 Mass. 73, 4 Am. Rep. 513; iloyt v. Holly, 39 Conn. 326. 12 Am. Rep. 390; Hubbard v. Miller, 27 Mich. 15, 15 Am. Rep. 153; Cook v. Johnson, 47 Conn. 175, 36 Am. Rep. 64.

The opinion in the Trans-Missouri case suggested a distinction between agreements restraining competition between persons or corporations engaged in business of a publie nature, and those engaged in private busiTo show this a passage is quoted from the case of Gibbs v. Consolidated Gas Co. 130 U. S. 396, 408, 32 L. ed. 979, 984, citing the following cases: New Orleans Gaslight Co. v. Louisiana Light & H. P. & Mfg. Co. 115 U. S. 650, 29 L. ed. 516; Louisville Gas Co. v. Citizens' Gas Co. 115 U. S. 683, 29 L. ed. 510; Shepard v. Milwaukee Gaslight Co. 6 Wis. 539; Chicago Gaslight & Coke Co v. People's Gaslight & Coke Co. 121 Ill. 530; St. Louis v. St. Louis Gaslight Co. 70 Mo. 69: Printing & N. Registering Co. v. Sampson, L. R. 19 Eq. 462; West Virginia Transp Co. v. Ohio River Pipe Line Co. 22 W. Va. 600, 46 Am. Rep. 527; Western U. Teleg. Co. v. American U. Teleg. Co. 65 Ga. 160, 38 Am. Rep. 781.

The contract is necessary to the uniform-ness. ity, the stability, the fairness, and the just ness of rates; to the ease, safety, and convenient despatch of the enormous transportation of the country; is necessary as a supplementary aid to the Interstate Commerce Law; and necessary to the prevention of crime, concealment, and perjury, otherwise sure to be committed to a prodigious extent, and necessary to the preservation of great public facilities; and is not a contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade within the meaning of the act.

If the Anti-Trust Act is interpreted as forbidding agreements such as the one under discussion, one of three alternatives must necessarily follow: (1) That all railroad transportation will be abandoned; or (2) the consolidation of all competing railroads un der a single ownership, either governmental or private; or (3) that all competing railroad business must be carried on in constant and daily violation of criminal law.

It is not possible for competing railroad transportation to be carried on permanently without uniformity in rates, fixed either by express or tacit agreement.

The multitudinous expressions of the Interstate Commerce Commission all mean uniformity of rates by agreement, either express or tacit.

Congress never intended in enacting the Anti-Trust Act, to condemn and make criminal as restraints on trade those regulating contracts and arrangements respecting railroad traffic which, in some form, are every where adopted, and without which it is impossible the business of railroads could be carried on in conformity with its own laws. Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States. 143 U. S. 457, 36 L. ed. 226,

The case of Gibbs v. Consolidated Gas Co. 130 U. S. 396, 32 L. ed. 979, furnishes no color of support to the view that any dif ferent rule is to be applied to the case of agreements between corporations engaged in business of a public nature from that which obtains in relation to agreements between individuals engaged in the like business.

The suggested distinction between persons engaged in business of a public nature and those engaged in ordinary business, which forbids the former and permits the latter to enter into agreements which may restrain competition merely, has no support in the authorities referred to.

This question whether agreements between such persons are injurious to trade depends always upon the actual effect of such agreements upon trade, such effect being deter mined by the character of the agreements and the purpose in view as shown by the agreements themselves and the facts of the situation which calls them forth and to which they were to be applied.

Even assuming that this clause in the agreement can be construed into a violation of § 5 of the Interstate Commerce Act, this suit would not be maintainable, because it is not authorized by that act, and is precluded by its express provisions.

People v. Fisher, 14 Wend. 9, 28 Am. Dec. | earnings of traffic which this agreement does 501; Hooker v. Vandewater, 4 Denio, 34, not contemplate. 47 Am. Dec. 258; Stanton v. Allen, 5 Denio, 434, 49 Am. Dec. 282; Cleveland, C. C. & I. R. Co. v. Closser, 126 Ind. 348, 9 L. R. A. 754, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 387; Shrewsbury & B. R. R. Co. v. London & N. W. R. Co. 17 Q. B. 652, 6 H. L. Cas. 113; Hare v. London & N. W. R. Co. 2 Johns. & H. 80; Manchester & L. R. Co. v. Concord R. Corp. 66 N. H. 100, 9 L. R. A. 689, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 319.

Agreements simply designed and operative to restrain ruinous competition are not in any manner objectionable when entered into by persons engaged in ordinary business. They have been repeatedly sustained, and, it is believed, nowhere condemned. But agreements between such parties, when calculated and designed simply to raise prices by suppressing ordinary competition, are equally obnoxious to the law.

Wickens v. Evans, 3 Younge & J. 318; Skrainka v. Scharringhausen, 8 Mo. App. 522; Sayer v. Louisville Union Benev. Asso. 1 Duv. 143, 85 Am. Dec. 613; Collins v. Locke, L. R. 4 App. Cas. 674; Central Shade Roller Co. v. Cushman, 143 Mass. 355; Gloucester Isinglass & G. Co. v. Russia Cement Co. 154 Mass. 92, 12 L. R. A. 563.

The agreement is in no manner in viola tion of the provisions of § 2 of the act. It creates no monopoly, nor is it an attempt or corspiracy to monopolize.

In the attempt made by the bill to array every possible objection to the agreement, there is an evident purpose to suggest that its 8th article, in connection with other subsidiary provisions, constitutes pooling, and therefore is a violation of § 5 of the Interstate Commerce Act. There is no foundation for such a charge. The agreement in no manner violates any provision of the Interstate Commerce Law.

Davies v. Davies, L. R. 36 Ch. Div. 359. Mr. Edward J. Phelps, for the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company, appellee:

Whether the agreement by its terms violates the Federal law depends entirely on the inquiry whether it conflicts with any statute of the United States.

The bill is not based upon any statute, but proceeds apparently upon common-law grounds. No statute is referred to or charged to have been violated.

The United States has no common law. Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 8 L. ed. 1055; United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch, 32, 3 L. ed. 259; Bucher v. Cheshire R. Co. 125 U. S. 555, 31 L. ed. 795.

The only statutes of the United States that are claimed to be infringed by the terms of the agreement are the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887, amended by acts of March 2, 1889, February 10, 1891, and February 8, 1895, and the Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890.

The agreement violates no provision of the Interstate Commerce Act.

The only provision in that act which is claimed to be infringed is contained in § 5, which prohibits "pooling."

"Pooling" means a division of the money

This court has no power to grant an injunction, either interlocutory or upon final decree, at the suit of the United States government, against the commission of a crime, where no other grounds for the injunction exist except that the act sought to be enjoined is an offense, unless such power is specially conferred by the statute.

Nor does it come within the general equity jurisdiction of the court, since an injunction of that character is unknown in equity jurisprudence.

United States v. Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 39 L. ed. 1092.

No power to grant an injunction against a "pooling" contract is conferred upon the court by the Interstate Commerce Act.

The Interstate Commerce Act does not authorize the commencement of any suit until an inquiry and decision of the Commissioners has first taken place, which in this case has not taken place.

The Anti-Trust Act of July 2, 1890, does not apply to the business of railroad transportation.

The case of United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Asso. 166 U. S. 290, 41 L. ed. 1007, is by no means controlling in this case. The points of difference are clearly pointed out in the brief of Mr. Edmunds, and need not be restated.

We ask of the court a reconsideration of the conclusions reached by the majority of the judges in that decision, which overrules the judgment of six United States circuit and district judges who sat in the different stages of that case and this, and is opposed to the opinion of four members of this tribunal, and also overrules the decision of Mr. Justice Jackson in the case Re Greene, 52 Fed. Rep. 109, which is directly in point.

Its consequences are far-reaching and disastrous. It deprives the citizens of this country of the right, never before questioned in an English or American court, of making a large class of just and reasonable contracts, often absolutely necessary to the use of property, the transaction of business, and the fair compensation of industry.

Many decisions of this court to this effect are cited by Mr. Justice White, to which many more might be added.

Where a special statute fully covers the subject to which it is addressed, and a subsequent general statute contains words that might, if standing alone, receive a construction broad enough to include the same matter, the general will always give way to the special statute, and will be regarded as not intended to intrude on its province, unless that intention is clearly manifested. And especially will this construction be given where, as in the present case, the statutes, if taken to relate to the same thing, would not only be superfluous, but inconsistent.

Endlich, Stat. §§ 113, 137, 22; Bishop, Written Law, § 126; Brewer v. Blougher, 14 Pet. 178, 10 L. ed. 408; Reiche v. Smythe, 13 Wall. 164, 20 L. ed. 566; Atkins v. Fibre Disintegrating Co. 18 Wall. 272, 21 L. ed. 841; United States v. Saunders, 22 Wall. 492, 22 L. ed. 736; Townsend v. Little, 109 U. S. 504, 27 L. ed. 1012.

Says Chief Justice Marshall in United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 95, 5 L. ed. 42: "The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly is perhaps not much less old than construction itself."

And in United States v. Morris, 14 Pet. 475, 10 L. ed. 548, the court remarked: "It has been long and well settled that such [penal] statutes must be construed strictly."

In Harrison v. Vose, 9 How. 378, 13 L. ed. 181, this court observed: "In the construction of a penal statute, it is well settled also that all reasonable doubts concerning its meaning ought to operate in favor of the respondent."

In the case of The Enterprise, 1 Paine, 32, Judge Livingston said: "It should be a principle of every criminal code, and certainly belongs to ours, that no person be adjudged guilty of an offense unless it be created and promulgated in terms which leave no reasonable doubt of their meaning."

"Statutes creating crimes will not be extended by judicial interpretation to cases not plainly and unmistakably within their terms. If this rule is lost sight of the courts may hold an act to be a crime when the legislature never so intended. If there is fair doubt whether the act charged in the indictment is embraced in the criminal prohibition, that doubt is to be resolved in favor of the accused."

Per Dillon, Justice, in United States v. Whittier, 5 Dill. 219. See also United States v. Sheldon, 2 Wheat. 119, 4 L. ed. 199; United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 395, 18 L. ed. 832; United States v. Shackford, 5 Mason, 445; United States v. Clayton, 2 Dill. 219; United States v. Garretson, 42 Fed. Rep. 22; Dwarris, Stat. 641; Hubbard v. Johnstone, 3 Taunt. 177.

But if any doubt could still exist on this point, it is completely set at rest by reference to the proceedings of Congress in both Houses, on the passage of the Anti-Trust

Act.

2 Cong. Record, pt. 1, 96; pt. 4, 3153, 3857; pt. 5, 4099, 4104, 4123, 4753, 4837; pt. 6, 5453, 5950, 5981; pt. 7, 6116, 6208, €312.

The Supreme Court of the United States held in the case of Blake v. National Banks, 23 Wall. 307, 23 L. ed. 119, that reference to the Congressional Journals may be had, on a question as to the meaning of the language

of a statute.

Gardner v. The Collector, 6 Wall. 511, 18 J.. ed. 894; Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 465, 36 L. ed. 230. Views of individual cannot be taken into consideration.

Aldridge v. Williams, 3 How. 24, 11 L. ed. 476; United States v. Union P. R. Co. 91 U. S. 79, 23 L. ed. 224; District of Columbia

v. Washington Market Co. 108 U. S. 250, 27 L. ed. 717.

Assuming for the purposes of argument that the Anti-Trust Act does apply to railway traffic contracts, no provision of that law is violated by the agreement now under consideration.

The prohibitions of the act are two: (1) Against contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce; (2) the monopoly of, or the attempt or combination to monopolize, any part of the trade or commerce of the states or with foreign nations.

The agreement in this case is not "in restraint of trade or commerce."

The theory of the bill seems to be that the agreement comes within this description because it tends to restrict competition, and because any agreement which restrains competition is "in restraint of trade." Both these assumptions are erroneous; the one in fact, the other in law.

The agreement does not restrain competition to any such appreciable extent as would justify an injunction, except that competi tion which is unlawful because it is secret.

Assuming, again, against the fact, that a certain restriction of competition is the necessary result of this agreement if it is allowed to proceed, it plainly appears by its terms to be only such restraint of competition as is necessary to secure "just and reasonable rates."

By the Interstate Commerce Act all rates are required to be "reasonable and just." Every unjust and unreasonable charge is made unlawful. Schedules of rates are required to be published and kept open to the public inspection, and to be filed with the Commissioners, and not to be changed without due notice to the public and the Commissioners. Ample remedies, criminal and civil, are provided for the violation of these requirements, the enforcement of which is made the duty of the Commissioners. And the companies are also made subject to the state laws regulating rates.

The precise question, therefore, under this clause of the Anti-Trust Act, is whether a contract that produces a result which the Interstate Commerce Act in terms authorizes and provides for, and helps to repress a practice which that act forbids, is for that reason a contract for the unlawful restraint of trade. Or, in other words, whether it can be made unlawful by a forced construction of the general provisions of one statute of the United States, for a carrier company to provide by a traffic contract for the maintenance of those "just and reasonable rates" which another statute of the United States not only authorizes, but creates elabor ate means for making permanent, and for preventing the secret changes of rates which the Interstate Commerce Act prohibits.

It is the statutes themselves that have prescribed a definition of this clause of the Anti-Trust Act, so far as it applies to railway traffic contracts, if it is held to apply to them at all, whatever its meaning as to other contracts may bc.

That the just and reasonable rates of

transportation which the Interstate Commerce Act contemplates and provides for are rates that are just ard reasonable to the carriers as well as to the carried cannot be open to doubt. The very words "just and reasonable," employed in that act, necessarily imply that meaning. They are words of comparison and relation, and unless the rights of both parties to a contract are considered there can be no comparison.

It would be preposterous to call a price just and reasonable, that was not so to one side as well as to the other. This is the construction which this court has given to the Interstate Commerce Act in this very particular.

Texas & P. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 197, 40 L. ed. 940, 5 Inters. Com. Rep. 405.

In the same opinion some observations of Mr. Justice Jackson, in the case of Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 43 Fed. Rep. 37, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 192, were cited with approbation.

This decision of Mr. Justice Jackson was affirmed in the United States Supreme Court.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 145 U. S. 263, 36 L. ed. 699, 4 Inters. Com. Rep. 32.

The validity of the agreement here in question must be determined, therefore, not merely upon the language of the Anti-Trust Act taken by itself, but by that language considered in connection with the other statute of the United States (which if this applies) is in pari materia, and which deals with the subject so much more exhaustively, and in words so plain that there can be no ambiguity raised in respect of them.

Granting that the Anti-Trust Act in terms makes all contracts unlawful that are in anywise "in restraint of trade," however reasonable and necessary they may be, is that to be understood to invalidate a railway contract made to secure that, and only that, which the Interstate Commerce Act as construed by this court recognizes as the right of railway companies to receive, and provides means to secure?

It will hardly be claimed that the elabo rate provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act on the subject of reasonable rates are repealed by the Anti-Trust Act. If both are to stand as applicable to this case, they must be read together, the same as if their provisions were contained (so far as they refer to the same subject) in separate sections of the same act.

Quite aside from the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act giving to the companies the right to just and reasonable rates, and to use proper means to maintain them, the same result is reached under the principles of common law.

The term "restraint of trade" employed in the Anti-Trust Statute has a common-law definition. And as the act furnishes no other, that, upon the general rules of construction, must be taken to be intended. To make the agreement an infringement of this statute, it must therefore be one that would be void at common law.

In the construction of statutes the rule is absolutely without exception, that where word or phrase employed has a well-settled common-law definition distinct from its literal meaning, it is assumed to be the meaning intended, unless a different definition is prescribed in the statute.

Even the Constitution of the United States has been from the outset subjected by this court to this rule of construction. Cooley, Const. Lim. 75.

The definition at common law, of a contract "in restraint of trade," is settled by a long course of decisions, and is no longer open to discussion. It is a contract which restricts trade beyond what is reasonable and just under the circumstances of the particular case.

Foule v. Parke, 131 U. S. 88, 33 L. ed. 67; Oregon Steam Nav. Co. v. Winsor, 20 Wall. 64, 22 L. ed. 315; Mogul S. S. Co. v. McGregor, L. R. 21 Q. B. Div. 553, L. R. 23 Q. B. Div. 598 [1892] A. C. 25.

Even if it should be held that the AntiTrust Act forbids any contract in restraint of trade, however just, reasonable, and necessary, the agreement here in question would not fall within the prohibition, because it does not tend to restrain trade or commerce, but rather to promote them.

A restraint upon excessive and unwholesome competition is not a restraint upon trade, but is necessary to its maintenance.

There is no ground whatever for asserting that the agreement infringes the provisions of the Anti-Trust Act against monopolies.

The definition of the word "monopoly," both in its legal and its ordinary signification, is the concentration of a business or employment in the hands of one, or, at most, of a few. That is the plain meaning of it as employed in the act. No feature of the agreement, in any view that can be taken of it, approaches this definition.

So far from tending toward the concentration of railroad transportation in fewer hands, it does not in any possible event withdraw it from a single road now in existence, nor throw the least obstacle in the way of the construction of others.

Its effect will be, if it is successful, not to diminish, but to increase transportation fa«ilities by preserving roads that otherwise might be driven from the field.

If the construction of the Anti-Trust Act, which was adopted by the court in the TransMissouri case is to stand, the act, so far as thus interpreted and applied, is in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, since it deprives the defendants in error of their liberty and their property without due process of law, and deprives them likewise of the equal protection of the laws.

This point was not made on the argument of the Trans-Missouri case because no such construction of the act was anticipated by counsel. Nor was it considered by the court, since it is an unvarying rule that no objection to the constitutionality of a law will be considered unless raised by the party affected.

The question thus presented is not whether the act in general, or in its application to the many other cases to which it is obviously addressed, is unconstitutional, but whether the agreement here under consideration is one that may be prohibited by legislation without infringing the freedom of contract and the right of property, which the Constitution declares and protects.

The record before the court conclusively establishes the fact that the agreement here in question was designed and intended and is necessary, as determined by long practical experience, to the maintenance of just and reasonable rates, and to the proper discharge of the business of the companies.

And in the Trans-Missouri Case, where the contract under consideration was similar to the one here in controversy, though far more open to the objections here urged, it was conceded, both in the majority and miLority opinions of the court, that its substantive character and purpose were such as the answers in the case aver and set forth.

It was for this reason believed by the minority of the judges that it could not have been the intention of Congress that such a contract should be made a penal offense. But it was held by the majority that the language of the act admitted of no other construction, though it was conceded in the opinion of the court that the arguments against that conclusion "bear with much force upon the policy of an act which should prevent a general agreement of rates among competing railroad companies, to the extent simply of maintaining those rates which were reasonable and fair."

And in the opinion of the minority of the court, by Mr. Justice White, he remarks, after stating the general features of the contract: "I content myself with giving this mere outline of the contract, and do not stop to demonstrate that its provisions are reasonable, since the opinion of the court rests upon that hypothesis."

The accuracy of the statement we have made above, of the legal effect upon this case of the Anti-Trust Act as so construed, is thus both established and conceded.

And the question distinctly arises whether legislation having such result is within the power of Congress.

The operation of the act as thus interpreted does in fact, by prohibiting the contract here in question, deprive the defendants, whether rightfully or not, of both liberty and property to a very grave and perhaps ruinous extent.

A just freedom of contract in lawful business is one of the most important rights reserved to the citizen under the general term of "liberty," for all human industry depends upon such freedom for its fair reward.

The use of property is an essential part of it, and when abridged the property itself is taken. Its use is abridged when the owner is precluded from any contract that is necessary or desirable in order to secure to him a just compensation for its employment.

And when any class in the community is so precluded it is to that extent "deprived of the equal protection of the laws." 171 U. S. U. S., Book 43.

18

These are elementary propositions in constitutional law, and have often been asserted by this court.

Pumpelly v. Green Bay & M. Canal Co. 13 Wall. 166, 20 L. ed. 557; Stone v. Farmers' Loan & T. Co. 116 U. S. 307, 29 L. ed. 636; Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 459, 33 L. ed. 982, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 209; Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & T. Co. 154 U. S. 397, 38 L. ed. 1023, 4 Inters. Com. Rep. 360.

The only authority of Congress over the agreement in controversy is such as may be deduced from its power "to regulate commerce," and is limited by the reasonable necessities of such regulation.

As contracts of this sort are not in themselves wrongful, have never before been held or deemed unlawful, and have been customary in all kinds of business in which they have been found useful, the right to prohibit them, if it exists at all, must arise under what is called the police power.

But the general power of police regulation is not vested in Congress. It is reserved to the states.

United States v. E. C. Knight Co. 156 U. S. 11, 39 L. ed. 329.

No exercise of the police power, whether the authority on which it rests is general or special, can be allowed to infringe rights secured by the Constitution of the United States.

No public good can be attained and no public necessity relieved by unconstitutional means.

New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light & H. P. & Mfg. Co. 115 U. S. 661, 29 L. ed. 521; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 29 L. ed. 691; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 661, 31 L. ed. 210.

There is no case known to English or American law, in which any man can maintain a claim that the use of property should be furnished or services performed for him at less than a reasonable compensation, unless under a specific contract for a less sum.

Railway companies, though creations of the legislatures, from which they derive their powers and to whose enactments they are subject, are no exception to this rule. Though the legislatures may regulate and to a reasonable extent prescribe their rates, it has been repeatedly held by this court, and is now fully settled, that they cannot be reduced below a just and reasonable amount, fixed in view of all the circumstances of the case.

Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & T. Co. 154 U. S. 362, 38 L. ed. 1014, Inters. Com. Rep. 560; Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 459, 33 L. ed. 982, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 209; Stone v. Farmers' Loan & 7. Co. 116 U. S. 307, 29 L. ed. 636.

The true test of the constitutionality of a law which abridges the freedom of contract must necessarily be found in the reasonableness and justice of the contract abridged.

The legislature cannot create restrictions upon the freedom of contract which the established rules of law and dictates of justice do not justify, and which result in tak

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