In 1906, when President Roosevelt became intensely active in the railroad problem, conditions were fairly demoralized. Attempts to enforce the anti-pooling clause had led railroads to purchase competing lines, and when the United States Supreme Court pronounced this illegal, the situation became chaotic. The evils of overcapitalization also became an issue of the times. The Interstate Commerce Commission had become almost moribund, and there was a general sentiment that the trouble arose from the fact that the commission had no power to fix rates and that the solution of the railroad problem would come only when such power was vested in it. * The Interstate Commerce Act which became a law on June 29, 1906, was the outcome of one of the greatest battles of President Roosevelt's political life. The act increased the membership of the commission from five to seven members, placed under its jurisdiction not only railroads but pipe lines, express companies, and sleeping-car companies, added to the other familiar restrictions a "commodities clause," which prohibited any railroad from transporting a product which it had produced or mined, "except such articles or commodities as may be necessary and intended for its use in the conduct of its business as a common carrier"--this clause was intended to end the railroad monopoly of the coal mines--and made the failure to observe published tariffs a crime punishable with imprisonment. The amended law did not give the commission the right to fix rates in the first instance but did empower it, on complaint, to investigate charges and on the basis of this investigation to determine just maximum rates, regulations, and practices, though carriers were given the right of appeal to the courts. * The Elkins Act of 1903 had, it is true, increased the effectiveness of the commission in dealing with discriminations, but it had not solved the problem of securing reasonable rates.