1. From 1887 Congress, by the act then passed "to regulate commerce" through all of its amendments to that act, including the act of June 29, 1906 (which was passed after the most elaborate investigation of the entire subject and the fullest debate), has adhered to a fixed policy in its legislation upon this subject. It has declared its constitutional right to regulate the transportation of persons and property in interstate and foreign commerce, while, at the same time, it has recognized the right of the owners of the instrumentalities of commerce to control and manage their properties subject to the supervision and limitation imposed by the regulating statute, that the charges, fares and rates must be fair, just, and reasonable; that neither discrimination as to person or place must be found in the schedules; and that no device of any character should result in unlawful preference between shippers. It has in all these acts recognized the right of the responsible managers of the transportation interests of the country to fix the rates for transportation, as upon its revenue must rest the efficiency of its service to the public and the value of its property to its holders, subject only to those wise limitations which prohibit the exercise of these property rights to the injury of the public. Congress has appreciated the magnitude of the vast interest affected by such legislation. With 230,000 miles of track, with millions of rates published in accordance with the statute, with changes of rates numbering between 600 and 700 a day, and reaching the enormous sum of 225,000 a year, it has, with the practical experience of twenty-two years, refused to take the initiation of rates from the carrier and impose it upon its administrative tribunal. Congress and the Supreme Court have adopted the construction of the act to regulate commerce, announced by Judge Jackson (Interstate Commerce Commission _v._ B. & O. R. R. Co., 43 Fed. Rep., 37, and affirmed, 145 U. S., 263): Subject to the two leading prohibitions that their charges shall not be unjust or unreasonable, and that they shall not unjustly discriminate, so as to give undue preference or disadvantage to persons or traffic similarly circumstanced, the act to regulate commerce leaves common carriers as they were at the common law, free to make special contracts looking to the increase of their business, to classify their traffic, to adjust and apportion their rates so as to meet the necessities of commerce, same principles, which are regarded as sound, and adopted in other trades and pursuits.