At length in 1883 Congress passed the civil service act authorizing, but not commanding, the President to appoint a commission and extend the merit system to certain Federal offices. The commission was to be composed of three members, not more than two of the same party, appointed by the President and Senate, and was charged with the duty of aiding the President, at his request, in preparing suitable rules for competitive examinations designed to test the fitness of applicants for offices in the public service, already classified or to be classified by executive order or by further legislation. The act itself brought a few offices under the merit system, but it left the extension of the principle largely to the discretion of the President. When the law went into force, it applied only to about 14,000 positions, but it was steadily extended, particularly by retiring Presidents anxious to secure the jobs already held by their partisans or to improve the efficiency of the service. Neither Cleveland nor Harrison enforced the law to the satisfaction of the reformers, for the pressure of the office seekers, particularly under Cleveland's first administration, was almost irresistible. _Railway and Trust Regulation_ In the beginning of the railway era in the United States, Congress made no attempt to devise a far-sighted plan of public control, but negligently devoted its attention to granting generous favors to railways. It was not until the stock-watering, high-financing, discriminations and rebates had disgraced the country that Congress was moved to act. It is true that President Grant in his message of 1872 recommended, and a Senate committee approved, a comprehensive plan for regulating railways, but there was no practical outcome. The railway interests were too strong in Congress to permit the enactment of any drastic regulatory laws. But at length the Granger movement, which had produced during the seventies so much railway regulation in the States,[30] appeared in Congress, and stirred by a long report by a Senate committee enumerating a terrifying list of abuses against shippers particularly, Congress passed, in 1887, the first important interstate commerce law.