If the railways were united into a national system under a great leader like James J. Hill, or A. J. Cassatt, free to operate the roads on business principles, untrammelled by the spoils system or any political control, backed by a public interest that would not tolerate favoritism, partyism, political influence or graft in any form, working with public aims and public motives instead of private aims and motives, managing the roads for the whole people as stockholders instead of for a small part of the people as stockholders, paid, in common with the whole body of employees, on the basis of a fixed remuneration plus an additional compensation proportioned to efficiency, and in constant consultation with local and national councils representing commercial, manufacturing, mining, labor, and agricultural organizations and interests, we should have a railway system and management whose efficiency would astonish the world, whose methods would bear the light, and whose administration would be an honor to twentiethcentury civilization. APPENDIX A.—THE COAL-CARRYING DECISION, U. S. SUPREME COURT. Since this book was put in type the United States Supreme Court has sustained the Interstate Commerce Commission in an important suit brought by the Commission against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad under the Elkins Act. The Chesapeake and Ohio agreed to deliver at New Haven 60,000 tons of coal at an aggregate cost which, after deducting the market price of the coal at the mines and the cost of transportation from Newport News to Connecticut, would leave the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway only about 28 cents a ton for carrying the coal to Newport News, while the published tariff was $1.45 per ton. Suit was brought by the Interstate Commission to enjoin the carrying out of this contract. The Government challenged the right of an Interstate carrier to perform a contract to sell and deliver merchandise (coal) whenever the price to be received by the railway is inadequate to cover its actual outlay, plus the published freight rates, upon the ground that the actual result would be discrimination and failure to collect the published tariff, in violation of the Interstate Commerce Law. The answer of the railway company was in effect that it charged the full rate for transportation, but sold the coal at less than market rates, at a price in fact which involved a loss, and that special circumstances justified it in so doing. The companies maintained that, when acting in good faith, they had, as dealers, the right to make contracts at a fixed price for sale and delivery extending over a series of years and then go into the market, buy the merchandise, and deliver it at destination, notwithstanding that what they received therefor might not be sufficient to yield them a net sum equal to the published freight rate, according to which shippers generally were charged.