Harlan F. Stone

“ The only question we need consider is whether the exercise of that power, in whatever capacity, must be in subordination to the power to regulate interstate commerce, which has been granted specifically to the national government. The sovereign power of the states is necessarily dimin shed to the extent of the grants of power to the federal government in the Constitution. The power of a state to fix intrastate railroad rates must yield to the power of the national government when their regulation is appropriate to the regulation of interstate commerce. ”

“ The state insists that the facts that it maintains no freight station, issues no bills of lading, and is engaged only in moving cars for a flat rate instead of at a charge per hundred pounds of freight moved, distinguish the operation of its railroad from that of the Brooklyn Terminal. As the service involves transportation of the cars and their contents, the method of fixing the charge is unimportant. ”

“ Any commo carrier engaged in interstate commerce by railroad using any locomotive engine, running any train, or hauling or permitting to be hauled or used on its line any car in violation of any of the preceding provisions of this chapter, shall be liable to a penalty of $100 for each and every such violation, to be recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States district attorney in the district court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violation shall have been committed ”

“ Language and objectives so plain are not to be thwarted by resort to a rule of construction whose purpose is but to resolve doubts, and whose application in the circumstances would be hightly artificial. ”

“ The presumption is an aid to consistent construction of statutes of the enacting sovereign when their purpose is in doubt, but it does not require that the aim of a statute fairly to be inferred be disregarded because not explicitly stated. ”

“ It receives and transports from the one to the other, by its own engines, all freight cars, loaded and empty, and the freight they contain, offered to it by railroads, steamship companies, and industrial plants. The larger part of this traffic has its origin or destination in states other than California. For the transportation service, it makes a flat charge per car. ”