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.
