THE UNITED STATES COMMERCE COURT

...When any railroad or group of railroads or any shipper or group of shippers think that the Interstate Commerce Commission has exceeded its authority in any decision the controversy will be referred to this new court...

...The judges of the Court each receive an expense allowance of $1,500 per year in excess of the regular salary of a circuit judge making the salary of each member of the Commerce Court, in effect, $7,500...

...To be sure most of the questions which will be presented to the Commerce Court for decision will be the outgrowth of administrative tangles in connection with the working of the Interstate Commerce Commission...

...Although the new court has, as yet, only temporary quarters at Washington the organization of its staff has been completed...

...The law prescribes that the members of the Commerce Court shall come from different judicial districts...

...The court has also been authorized by law to hold sessions anywhere in the country if by doing it can avoid undue expense or inconvenience to suitors...

...At the outset some twenty-seven cases, many of them of far-reaching import, will have place on the calendar, and the court is likely to be in session more or less continuously during the spring and early summer in order that as many as possible of these may be disposed of...

...Why the new court begins operations with so extensive a calendar of cases is explained by the automatic transfer to the Ccurt of Commerce of the cases which have been pending in the various federal courts throughout the country,—that is, cases of a character over which the Commerce Court will henceforth have exclusive jurisdiction...

...But to construe the Commerce Court as an appeal tribunal presupposes that the Interstate Commission has judicial powers, whereas it has not...

...A preliminary session was held one day in February, but this prelude of no more than half an hour's duration was simply for the presentation of the twelve to fifteen attorneys who have thus far qualified to practice before the new court...

...The regular sessions of the new court are to be held in the city of Washington, but the powers of the court and of the individual judges comprising it may be exercised anywhere in the United Etates...

...The Commission is merely a governmental agent or instrument for the exercise of the authority vested by Congress and the enforcement of the laws...

...P. J. Starek, Marshal, who receives a salary of $3,000...

...Judge Knapp, by virtue of having been designated for the five-year period became the first presiding judge of the new court...

...After the year 1914 no circuit judge can be redesignated to serve in the Commerce Court until at least one year after his previous service on that bench so that the personnel of this so-called "Supreme Court of the Railroads" will be constantly undergoing change...

...However, in order to establish the new court on a working basis it was provided that at the outset five additional circuit judges should be appointed and should be designated by the President to serve for one, two, three, four and five years, respectively, in order that the period of designation of one Commerce Court judge shall expire in each year...

...How this plan will work out in practice is being illustrated at the very outset, inasmuch as the new court postponed from March to April the date for beginning its initial trial term in order that one of the judges of the court might go to the Pacific Coast and take testimony at San Francisco and Los Angeles in a famous case involving railroad switching rights and privileges...

...The presiding judge, or chief justice, of the new court is Martin A. Knapp, who was for years the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission...

...It is a popular misconception which assigns to the new tribunal the role of a "court of appeals" from the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission...

...Cases can be appealed from the Commerce Court to the Supreme Court of the United States provided they involve a constitutional question,—and shrewd lawyers seem to believe that almost any issue can be twisted into a constitutional problem,—but the present expectation is that comparatively few cases will be carried up...

...Formerly such disputes went to the circuit courts...

...The law provides that the judges of this new court of record shall be designated and assigned to it by the Chief Justice of the United States from among the circuit judges of the United States for the period of five years...

...Some of these early cases involve questions long in dispute...

...The officers of the court are headed by George F. Snyder, Clerk, who receives a salary of $4,000 per year...

...The United States Commerce Court Uncle Sam's New Tribunal, the so-called "Supreme Court of the Railroads" By WALDON FAWCETT EARLY in April, the nation's newest tribunal, the United States Commerce Court, will begin work...

...The associate judges are Robert W. Archbald, William H. Hunt, John F. Carland, and Julian W. Mack...

...It is not expected that it will often be necessary for the entire court thus to transfer the seat of its activities, but it will probably be a common practice for one judge of the court to journey to this section of the country or to that in order to take testimony which will later be presented when the case is argued before the full court in Washington...

...and Mr...

...It is the arbiter of all questions involving the authority of the national government with relation to the railroads and other interests engaged in interstate commerce in any form...

...Had not this plan been devised it would have been necessary to summon a large number of witnesses from California to Washington...