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Excerpt from State Railroad Commissions: Ten Years' Working of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission; Railroad Commission Laws of All the States That Have Commissions The necessity for some governmental control and regulation of railroads has within a few years led many states of the Union to undertake that regulation through "railroad commissions." In a few of the states there had been for many years officers with that title, but with very limited powers, chiefly as to location or construction, which in other states were exercised by local authorities, or not exercised at all; and their jurisdiction did not extend to the operations of railroads, or the relations of the corporations to the public. The immense extension of railroads since the civil war, the vast amount of business they do, their great importance in internal commerce of the country, and their tremendous power of aggregated wealth and monopoly have led the people who are independent upon them to seek some method of controlling them, compelling them to perform their duties as common carriers, and preventing extortion and unjust discrimination. General laws without some special officers to supervise their observance were found to be inoperative, and resort was had to commissions, with greater or less powers, as a means of enforcing statute laws, securing a compliance with the common law, and maintaining the rights of the public. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.