Edward Douglass White

“ In the second place, as in terms the act empowered telegraph companies to establish reasonable rates, subject to the control which the act to regulate commerce exerted, it follows that the power thus given, limited of course by such control, carried with it the primary authority to provide a rate for unrepeated telegrams and the right to fix a reasonable limitation of responsibility where such rate was charged, since as pointed out in the Primrose Case the right to contract on such subject was embraced within the grant of the primary rate-making power. ”

“ In the third place, as the act expressly provided that the telegraph, telephone or cable messages to which it related may be 'classified into day, night, repeated, unrepeated, letter, commercial, press, government and such other classes as are just and reasonable and different rates may be charged for the different classes of messages,' it would seem unmistakably to draw under the federal control the very power which the construction given below to the act necessarily excluded from such control. ”

“ In passing upon it the court declared that the ruling previously made in the Showers Case, as to the operation of the act of Congress of 1910, was erroneous. Coming therefore anew to reconsider that subject, it was held that the act of Congress of 1910 had not extended the power of Congress over the rates of telegraph companies for interstate business and the contracts made by them as to such subject, and hence the Showers Case, in so far as it held to the contrary, was overruled. ”