Profits on eleven billion dollars swung closer to U. S. railroads and their owners last week when the U. S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the St. Louis and O'Fallon R. R. in its dispute with the Interstate Commerce Commission on the most fundamental issue in the transportation world—valuation. The Supreme Court, five to three, ruled that the I. C. C. had failed to give to "current reproduction value" the consideration Congress intended in the Transportation Act of 1920.
"Congress must be obeyed," declared Justice McReynolds in rendering the majority opinion from which dissented Justices Holmes, Brandeis and...