Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised rate to at once go into effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the court of review reverses it.” The President’s message of December, 1905, has already been quoted at sufficient length in Chapter XXXII. In the last two years the legislatures of 18 States have passed joint resolutions petitioning Congress to enact legislation for the regulation of railroad rates; 12 States took this action last winter, 1905, and asked their representatives and senators to secure the enactment of such a measure. Commercial bodies in various parts of the country have also petitioned for such legislation, while others have protested against it.[397] The Esch-Townsend Bill (1905) giving the Commission power to fix rates passed the House, but failed to pass the Senate.[398] As stated in the preceding chapter, the House has passed the Hepburn Bill by a very large majority and it has gone to the Senate, where a determined effort will undoubtedly be made to secure at least a provision for judicial review on their merits of all orders of the Commission. _Objections of Railroad Men._ Railroad men object to further regulation till the effectiveness of the present laws has been thoroughly tested. In answer to the question what he would do to stop discrimination, President Tuttle of the Boston and Maine Railroad said to me this morning: “Enforce existing laws. The Interstate Commission can investigate the railroads. It need not wait for complaints. It can act on its own initiative. It can have experts examine the railroad books. It can publish the facts, and publicity is a powerful corrective. It can put the facts it secures in the hands of the Attorney-General, and if the Department of Justice will prosecute promptly discrimination can be stopped. There were no prosecutions even after the Hutchinson salt investigation. The law is ample. The trouble is that no adequate effort has been made to enforce it.”