It is entirely possible to avoid such mistakes as those attributable to the Commission in its geographical cases, and other mistakes that may come from lack of thorough acquaintance with practical transportation problems, by putting on the Commission two or three traffic men of high character and long experience in the business of making rates. And as the business of the Commission would not be to make rates in the first instance, but only to revise them on complaint, much as the chief officers of railway departments do now, only with a public motive and point of view instead of a private one, there is every reason to believe that the work of revision could be intrusted to a well-selected commission, with great advantage to the public. The very existence of an effective power of revision ought to go a long way toward making the use of the power unnecessary. And it is wholly just and practicable that monopoly charges should be subject to the veto of a public board that is in a position to take a broad, disinterested view of rates and other transportation questions. How superior the Commission’s methods are in many ways to those in use on our railways can hardly be appreciated by one who is not familiar with the unscientific, chaotic rate-making practices everywhere in vogue in this country, and also with the breadth and system that marks the work of the Commission. An illustration may help to make the contrast clear. Take the case of Kindel _v._ Boston & Albany, and other railroads, decided by the Commission, December 28, 1905. The railroads were charging $2.24 per hundred on cotton-piece goods from Boston, New York, and other eastern points to Denver, and $1.50 on the same goods from the East clear through to San Francisco. The local rate from Omaha or Kansas City to Denver was $1.25, the same as the rate on first-class goods, and the rate from the Atlantic to Denver was made by adding the said local rate to the rate from the East to the Missouri River. Kindel complained that the rate to Denver was unreasonable and unjust. The Commission carefully studied the facts, took into consideration the relation between cotton rates and first-class rates on various routes throughout the country, put the data on a chart, a facsimile of which accompanies this description, and came to the conclusion that “the exaction of first-class rates on cotton-piece goods between Missouri River points and Denver, in view of the long prevailing differentials in other parts of the country and other existing conditions, is unjust and unreasonable; and that the result of the excessive rate on cotton-piece goods between the Missouri River and Denver and the application of full locals in making up the through combination rate from New York, Boston and other eastern points taking the same rates to Denver is to make the through rate excessive, and that such through rate to Denver to be reasonable should not exceed $1.50 per hundred pounds.”[412] [Illustration]