by John Marshall Harlan

“ It may well be that on some particular article the railroad companies may deem it wise to make a reduction of the rate, and it may be that the public interests will justify the state board of transportation in ordering such reduction. We have not laid down any cast-iron rule covering each and every separate rate. We only adjudged that the enforcement of the schedules of rates established by the state statute, looking at such rates as a whole, would deprive the railroad companies of the compensation they were legally entitled to receive. ”

“ The appellants now ask that the decree of the circuit court in that case be modified by striking therefrom the words, 'and below those now charged by said companies, or either of them, or their receivers,' and the words, 'and particularly from reducing t § present rates of charges for transportation of freight to those prescribed in said act.'
The decree of the circuit court in Smyth, Atty. Gen., et al. v. Smith et al., No. 50, and the decree in Same v. Higginson et al., No. 51, are substantially the same as the decree in the case of Same v. Ames et al. The appellants in Same v. Smith et al. ”