Felix Frankfurter

“ But, in any event, against possible inconveniences due to observance of state law we must balance the feelings of local communities, the dislocation of their habits and the over-riding of expert state agencies by a single judge sitting, as in this case, in another state, removed from familiarity with local problems, and not necessarily gifted with statesman-like imagination that transcends the wisdom of local attachments. ”

“ In view of the judicial history of railroad receiverships and the extent to which § 77 made judicial action dependent on approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission, it would violate the traditional respect of Congress for local interests and for the administrative process to imply power in a single judge to disregard state law over local activities of a carrier the governance of which Congress has withheld even from the Interstate Commerce Commission, except as part of a complete plan of reorganization for an insolvent road. ”

“ To be sure, in recent years Congress has from time to time exercised authority over purely intrastate activities of an interstate carrier when, in the judgment of Congress, an interstate carrier constituted, as a matter of economic fact, a single organism and could not effectively be regulated as to some of its interstate phases without drawing local business within the regulated sphere. ”