Business & Finance: Command to Build

Before a railroad may build a new line, it must make application to its stern guardian, the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Commission may or may not look favorably on the petition of its ward. Last week for the first time the I.C.C., without waiting to be asked by a railroad, commanded the Union Pacific to build 185 miles of new line. This assumption that the Commission has positive as well as negative, executive as well as judicial power over the railroads of the land will probably be...