William R. Day

“ It may be true that the regulation of interstate commerce by rail has the effect to give an advantage to commerce wholly by water and to ports which can be reached by means of inland navigation, but these are natural advantages and are not created by statutory law. The fact that regulation, within the acknowledged power of Congress to enact, may affect the ports of one state more than those of another, cannot be construed as a violation of this constitutional provision. ”

“ Whether shippers who pay a rate under the honest belief that it is the lawfully established rate, when in fact it is not, are liable under the statute because of a duty resting on them to inform themselves as to the existence of the elements essential to establish a rate as required by law, is a question not decided, because not arising on this record. ”

“ While intent is, in a certain sense, essential to the commission of a crime, and in some classes of cases it is necessary to show moral turpitude in order to make out a crime, there is a class of cases within which we think the one under consideration falls, where purposely doing a thing prohibited by statute may amount to an offense, although the act does not involve turpitude or moral wrong. In this case the statutes provide it shall be penal to receive transportation of goods at less than the published rate. ”

“ And we find the word 'device' disassociated from any such words as 'fraudulent conduct, scheme, or contrivance,' but the act seeks to reach all means and methods by which the unlawful preference of rebate, concession, or discrimination is offered, granted, given, or received. Had it been the intention of Congress to limit the obtaining of such preferences to fraudulent schemes or devices, or to those operating only by dishonest, underhanded methods, it would have been easy to have so provided in words that would be unmistakable in their meaning. A device need not be necessarily fraudulent ”

“ We are not now concerned with the construction of the act in making provision for punishing the carrier or shipper for offering, granting, or giving, or soliciting, accepting, or receiving, rebates, concessions, or discriminations, irrespective of actual transportation, for it is specifically made an offense to receive any rebate or concession whereby any such property is, by any device whatever, transported at a less rate than that named, published, and filed by the carrier ”

“ The through rate is obtained by adding the ocean rate to the inland rate. There is no contractual relation between the railroad carrier and the ocean carrier. The ocean rate is uncertain and variable, depending upon time of sailing and available space. The accommodation for ocean shipment was obtained by the shipper and by it made known to the inland carrier. We think the language of the statute, read in the light of the manifest purpose of its passage, shows the intent of Congress to bring interstate commerce within the control of the provisions of the law up to the time of ocean shipment. ”

“ It is true, as we have held in another part of this opinion, that no device or contrivance, secret or fraudulent in its nature, is requisite to the commission of the offense outlined in the statute, and that any means by which transportation by a concession from the established rate was had is sufficient to work a conviction. ”

“ For these, among other reasons, there was no contract agreement or traffic arrangements between the railroads and export steamship lines. The reservation of space upon an ocean steamer in advance is an important thing, so that the packing company can be certain that its shipment can go on the boats sailing at specified times. The packing company has houses in different parts of the United States, so that it cannot always, at the time of the contract for space, know from what particular point and over what road the shipments will go. ”

“ The packing company paid to the Burlington Company, as the initial carrier, the full through rate for the carriage over the line of the Burlington Company and its connecting carriers and that of the steamship line, and, from the time of the delivery of the freight to the railway company at Kansas City, Kansas, until it was delivered at the export destination, it was exclusively handled by the carriers, rail and steamship, the shipper having nothing to do with it. ”

“ Justice White, in New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U.S. 361, 391, 50 L. ed. 515, 521, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 272, 277, are apposite here:
'It cannot be challenged that the great purpose of the act to regulate commerce, whilst seeking to prevent unjust and unreasonable rates, was to secure equality of rates as to all and to destroy favoritism, these last being accomplished by requiring the publication of tariffs and by prohibiting secret departures from such tariffs, and forbidding rebates, preferences, and all other forms of undue discrimination. ”

“ Such construction would place such important commerce shipped in the United States to a port for transshipment abroad wholly outside the restrictions of the law, and enable shippers to withdraw such commerce from the regulations enforced against other interstate commerce by the expedient of a through bill of lading. ”

“ The steamship must sail at a given date and has a certain amount of space to be filled, so that space may be at one time quoted to one person at one price and at another time to another person at a different price. ”