Impressed with the magnitude of the abuses involved, and the hopelessness of regulation through state laws, the committee presented a bill designed to bring about regulation on a national scale through a federal agency. The resulting law was the Interstate Commerce Act of February 4, 1887. It provided that all railway charges should be reasonable and just; forbade the roads to grant rebates, or to give preferences to any person, locality or class of freight, or to charge more for a short haul than for a long one except with the consent of the proper authorities; it made pooling unlawful; and it ordered the companies to post printed copies of their rates, which were not to be altered except after ten days' public notice. The act also created an Interstate Commerce Commission of five members to serve six-year terms, into whose hands the administration of the measure was placed. Persons who claimed that the railways were violating the provisions of the law could make complaint to the Commission, or bring suit in a United States Court. In order that the Commission might know the condition of the roads, it was given power to call upon the carriers for information, to demand annual reports from them, and to require the attendance of witnesses. If the railroads refused to carry out the orders of the Commission, they could be brought before a United States district court. In forbidding pools, the Act committed the railroads to the policy of enforced competition, a policy which was commonly accepted at the time as the best one for the public interest. Such experts, however, as Professor A.T. Hadley and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., raised important objections. They cited the rate wars to indicate the results of competition and declared that railroads ought to be monopolies. If two grocery stores are established where trade enough exists for only one, they asserted, the weaker competitor can close his doors and the public loss is not heavy; but in the case of the railways a weak competitor must continue business even at disastrously low rates because all his interest charges continue and the depreciation on his property is extreme. The construction of an unnecessary road and its subsequent operation at a loss, its failure or its abandonment, constitute a great drain upon the public. Such objectors contended that pooling combinations did away with many of the evils of cut-throat competition, and they accordingly urged that the carriers be permitted to make such arrangements, under whatever government regulation might be needed to prevent unreasonable charges. By such means the available business of a region might be fairly divided among the roads entering it, without resort to competitive rate-cutting and its consequent evils.