Hepburn Act
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Hepburn Act
Congress passed the Hepburn Act to clarify and increase the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission over railroads and certain other types of carriers. It authorized the commission to determine and prescribe just and reasonable maximum rates, establish through routes, and prescribe and enforce uniform systems of accounts. The law also strengthened the Elkins Act of 1903, dealing with personal discrimination; forbade railroads from transporting, except for their own use, many commodities in which they were financially interested; restricted the granting of free passes; and increased the number of commissioners from five to seven. The commission's orders were made binding without court action, thus requiring carriers to assume the burden of initiating litigation that tested the validity of the orders.
Bibliography
Cooper, John Milton, Jr. Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900–1920. New York: Norton, 1990.
Eisner, Marc Allen. Regulatory Politics in Transition. 2d ed. Interpreting American Politics Series. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. The original edition was published in 1993.
Kolko, Gabriel. Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965.
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Hepburn Act
The Hepburn Act is a 1906 United States federal law that gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to set maximum railroad rates. This led to the discontinuation of free passes to loyal shippers.[1] In addition, the ICC could view the railroads' financial records, a task simplified by standardized bookkeeping systems. For any railroad that resisted, the ICC's conditions would remain in effect until the outcome of legislation said otherwise. By the Hepburn Act, the ICC's authority was extended to cover bridges, terminals, ferries, railroad sleeping cars, express companies and oil pipelines.
Along with the Elkins Act of 1903, the Hepburn Act, named for its sponsor, eleven-term Republican William Peters Hepburn, was a subset of one of President Theodore Roosevelt's major goals: railroad regulation.
The final version was close to what Roosevelt had asked, and easily passed Congress with only three dissenting votes.[2] The most important provision gave the ICC the power to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable. The Act made ICC orders binding; that is, the railroads had to either obey or contest the ICC orders in federal court. To speed the process, appeals from the district courts would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anti-rebate provisions were toughened, free passes were outlawed, and the penalties for violation were increased. The ICC staff grew from 104 in 1890 to 178 in 1905, 330 in 1907, and 527 in 1909. Finally, the ICC gained the power to prescribe a uniform system of accounting, require standardized reports, and inspect railroad accounts.[3]
The limitation on railroad rates depreciated the value of railroad securities, a factor in causing the Panic of 1907.[4]
Scholars consider the Hepburn Act the most important piece of legislation regarding railroads in the first half of the 20th century. Economists and historians debate whether it crippled the railroads, giving so much advantage to the shippers that a giant unregulated trucking industry—undreamed of in 1906—took away their business.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Hepburn Act, 59th Congress, Sess. 1, ch. 3591, 34 Stat. 584, enacted 1906-06-29.
- ^ Morris, Edmund (2002). Theodore Rex. Modern Library. p. 446. ISBN 978-0-8129-6600-8.
- ^ Stone, Richard D. (1991). The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Railroad Industry: A History of Regulatory Policy. Praeger. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-275-93941-0.
- ^ Edwards, Adolph (1907). The Roosevelt Panic of 1907. New York: Anitrock. p. 66. http://books.google.com/?id=R3koAAAAYAAJ.
- ^ Martin, Albro (1971). Enterprise Denied: Origins of the Decline of American Railroads, 1897-1917. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-03508-8.
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Mentioned in
rebate
(in economics)
William Peters Hepburn
(American statesman)
Stephen Benton Elkins
(American statesman)
Biography: Theodore Roosevelt - Rough Rider to Rushmore
(1997 History Film)
Interstate Commerce Commission
(agency, United States – in government)
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