"Moreover, it may be fairly claimed that much greater benefits would have been realized had the statute as enacted expressed the evident purpose of those who framed it, and received a construction according to its apparent import. It is not too much to say that judicial interpretation has limited its scope and ascribed to it an intent not contemplated when it was passed. If its supposed meaning, as understood at the time of its passage, had been upheld by the courts, it is believed that its operation would have been much more effective and its usefulness greatly increased. So far as failure has attended the efforts to give it proper administration, that failure can be mainly attributed to differences between its apparent meaning and the judicial interpretation which some of its provisions have received; and the commission is of the opinion that if the present law could be so altered as to express clearly and beyond doubt what it was evidently intended to express at the time of its enactment, it would prove, even without other amendment, an instrumentality of the highest value in removing the evils against which it is aimed. "The specific instances in which the statute has received judicial construction, and the limitations upon its scope and meaning which the courts have imposed, will be alluded to at greater length in another part of this report. "It seems proper, however, to observe in this connection that the effect of these decisions in weakening the law and preventing its enforcement has been greatly exaggerated. The impression has been created in many directions that judicial construction has invalidated the essential feature of the statute and condemned the general principle which lies at its foundation. That impression cannot be too speedily corrected, for nothing has been decided which permits such an inference. On the contrary, neither the power of the national legislature to regulate the transportation of interstate commerce nor the general policy of the existing law has been questioned by any tribunal." Probably no law in the United States has ever before been so fiercely attacked at all of its vital points as has this law. It is not strange that among the great number of National and State courts the railroad companies have found occasionally a judge ready and willing to assist them in breaking it down, but upon the whole the judiciary has been disposed to co-operate with other departments of the Government in their efforts to secure effective regulation of the transportation business. CHAPTER VI. STOCK AND BOND INFLATION.