Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The hearing to be sure is not of the ordinary kind. The railroads have no adversary. The Commission of course has no object except to arrive at the truth. It is not to be cross-examined for bias or otherwise as to its capacity to decide or modes of deciding what is entrusted to it, but on the other hand since it must grant a hearing manifest justice requires that the railroads should know the facts that the Commission supposes to be established and we presume that it would desire the grounds of its tentative valuation to be subjected to searching tests. ”

“ While there can be no public policy or relation of confidence that should prevail against the paramount claim of the roads, the work of the Commission must go on, and cannot be stopped as it would be if many of the railroads concerned undertook an examination of all its papers to see what they could find out. We need not now consider whether the statute authorizes the order if it be construed to apply to cases like the present for we cannot doubt that this Commission will do all in its power to help the relator to whatever it justly may demand. ”

“ The relator's claim of right has for its broadest basis the fact that the valuation when made final by the Commission will be prima facie evidence in various judicial proceedings in which the value of the property is material to the decision of the case. ”