The committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Windom, discharged their duty with great fidelity, and submitted their report to the Senate during its next regular session. They declared that the defects and abuses of the then existing systems of transportation were insufficient facilities, unfair discrimination and extortionate charges. As the principal causes of such excessive rates they assigned stock watering, capitalization of surplus earnings, construction rings, general extravagance and corruption in railway management, and combinations and consolidations of railway companies. The committee were of the opinion that the promotion of competition would not permanently remedy the existing evils, and laid it down as a general rule that competition among railways ends in combination and in enhanced rates. As expedient and practical remedies for the existing evils they recommended the following measures: 1. Direct Congressional regulation of railway transportation, under the power to regulate commerce among the several States. 2. Indirect regulation and promotion of competition, through the agency of one or more lines of railway, to be owned and controlled by the Government. 3. The improvement of natural water-ways and the construction of artificial channels of water communication. The report was accepted and considered, but there the matter rested, so far as the practical results were concerned. In 1878 Mr. John H. Reagan, of Texas, introduced in the House of Representatives a bill for an act to regulate railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce. This may be said to have been the first real interstate commerce bill before Congress. It was a progressive, thorough and well-planned measure, but failed to receive the approval of Congress because a majority of its members considered it too radical a measure. The bill contained many of the provisions of the present Interstate Commerce Act, including the anti-pooling and the long and short haul clauses; but instead of creating a commission it lodged in the courts, both State and Federal, the power to enforce the law. Other bills were introduced from year to year, but during a period of nine years none of them drew sufficient votes to make it a law. Congress may be said to have been divided into three camps upon the railroad question, viz.: those who favored the system of regulation proposed by Mr. Reagan, those who favored the commissioner system and those who were opposed to every mode of Federal regulation of interstate commerce. In the meantime, the inactivity of Congress caused considerable restlessness among the people, and the demand for action became louder every year. The issue entered into politics, and a number of Western Congressmen owed their failure to be re-elected to their indifference or enmity to Federal railroad legislation.