Hugo Black

“ We are called upon only to interpret a single Act of Congress. With unquestioned power to regulate Cornell's business, Congress in this Act has given its own definition to Cornell's activities in words literally inclusive of those activities, and which operate to subject to the Act interstate activities in the business of towing, which at common law was a common calling. ”

“ When in 1940 Congress provided for the regulation of water carriers in interstate and foreign commerce, it defined 'transportation in interstate * * * commerce' for the purpose of such regulation to mean 'transportation of persons or property- (1) wholly by water from a place in a State to a place in any other State, whether or not such transportation takes place wholly in the United States.' § 302 (i) (1) of the Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. ”

“ Water transportation between two ports of a single state may touch many other states, and pass through hundreds of miles of other states' waters, far removed from the state in which the terminal ports of the voyage are located. Power of the Commission to regulate such movements appears to come well within the broad purposes declared by Congress in passing legislation designed comprehensively to coordinate a national system of all types of transportation. We are unpersuaded that Congress has inadvertently left such a gap in its plan as acceptance of Cornell's argument would create. ”

“ Cornell is in active competition with other types of interstate water carriers as well as with trucks and railroads. Therefore, if Cornell's particular method of providing water transportation facilities for others is not subject to regulation under the Act, it would appear to present an anomalous exception to the Congressional plan for regulation of competing transportation activities. We conclude that the language of the Act brings Cornell's business within its coverage, and that to construe the Act otherwise would frustrate the purpose of Congress. ”

“ For we are here concerned with three different definitions having different genealogies in the general field of regulation incorporated in one piece of legislation, namely the Transportation Act of 1940. There is nothing in the legislative history of the extent of the power over transportation by water carriage committed to the Commission to show that Congress meant that the phrasing which it employed was in purpose to be identic with the different phrasings Congress used as to rail and motor carriers. ”

“ No doubt, as the House Committee said, 'Most of the regulatory provisions included in the new part III were modeled on provisions of part I dealing with the same subject.' H.R. No. 1217, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 18. In its context, the idea behind the phrase 'regulatory provisions' bears on how to regulate not what is regulated. ”