Harlan F. Stone

“ In any event, we think that section 20 (5) cannot be read as authorizing the Interstate Commerce Commission to supplant state power to regulate depreciation rates of telephone companies except by prescribing a rate administratively determined by the commission itself. A direction that the commission, as soon as practicable, prescribe depreciation rates, is hardly to be read as authority to permit the telephone companies to fix the rates for themselves in defiance of state power. ”

“ We leave aside the argument of respondent that the federal government is powerless to deny to the states authority to prescribe accounts and depreciation rates to assist them in fixing rates for intrastate telephone service, see Interstate Commerce Commission v. ”

“ Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124, 20 L.Ed. 122; Ambrosini v. United States, 187 U.S. 1, 7, 23 S.Ct. 1, 47 L.Ed. 49, and pass to the question, decisive of the present case, whether there has yet been any exercise of such power. ”