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routes, and § 5258 of the Revised Statutes, providing for the connection of railroads, exempt the cars from attachment.

In our discussion we may address ourselves to the contention of defendants. They do not contend that the laws of the State have the purpose to interfere with the interstate commerce, or are directly contrary to the acts of Congress. They do contend, however, that "to permit the instrumentalities used in the interchange of traffic by railway common carriers to be seized on process from various state courts does directly burden and impede interstate traffic within the inhibition of the acts of Congress." In other words, that the acts of Congress constitute a declaration of exemption of railroad property from attachment, and, of course, from execution as well, by reason of their provisions for continuity of transportation.

This can only result if there is incompatibility between the obligations a railroad may have to its creditors and the obligations which it may have to the public, either from the nature of its service or under the acts of Congress. Obligations it surely will have to creditors, inevitable even in providing equipment for its duties inevitable in its performance of them. It would seem, therefore, that the contentions of the defendants are but deductions from the broader proposition that all of the property of the railroad company is put apart in a kind of civil sanctuary. And one case (Wall v. Railroad Company, supra) seems to give this extent to the exemption. Indeed, the decision in the case at bar seems to do so, the court holding, as we have seen, that the C. C. C. & St. L. Ry. Co.'s share of the compensation for carriage was as much a part of interstate commerce as the actual carriage of property. A still broader proposition under the contention might be urged. If the property have such character that all obligations of the company must yield to the public use or to the obligations imposed by Congress, the railroad company itself, it might be contended, cannot burden its property and that its property is taken from it as an asset of credit, the means, it may be, of performing the very duties enjoined upon it, and the anomaly

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will be presented of the duties it is to perform becoming an obstacle to acquiring the means of performing them. Indeed, the further consequence might be said to follow that the rolling stock of a railroad is exempt from taxation, at least so far as taxation might be attempted to be enforced against the rolling stock. We realize that a proposition may be generally applicable and yet involve embarrassment when pushed to a logical extreme. If this be so of the contentions of defendant, it may be so of the counter contentions which would subject the cars of a railroad company to attachment process, however engaged or wherever situate.

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It is very certain that when Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Law it did not intend to abrogate the attachment laws of the States. It is very certain that there is no conscious purpose in the laws of the States to regulate, directly or indirectly, interstate commerce. We may put out of the case, therefore, as an element an attempt of the State to exercise control over interstate commerce in excess of its power. deed, the questions in this case might arise upon process issued out of the Circuit Court of the United States under the Federal statutes. For, by $$ 915 and 916 of the Revised Statutes, remedies "by attachment or other process," before judgment, and "by execution or otherwise," after judgment, are given litigants in common law causes in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States.

The questions in the case, therefore, depend for their solution upon the interpretation of Federal laws. May the laws of the States for the enforcement of debts (laws which we need not stop to vindicate as necessary foundations of credit and because they give support to commerce, state and interstate), and the Federal laws which permit or enjoin continuity of transportation, so far incompatible that the provisions of the latter must be construed as displacing the former? We do not think so. Section 5258 of the Revised Statutes is permissive, not imperative. It removed the "trammels interposed by State enactments or by existing laws of Congress" to the VOL. CCXVII-12

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powers of railroad companies to make continuous lines of transportation. Railroad Co. v. Richmond, 19 Wall. 584, 589. The Interstate Commerce Act, however, has a different character. It restricts the powers of the railroads. It regulates interstate railroads and makes it unlawful for them, by any 'means or devices," to prevent "the carriage of freight from being continuous from the place of shipment to the place of destination." 1

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The Interstate Commerce Law therefore is directed against the acts of railroad companies which may prevent continuity of transportation. Section 5258 of the Revised Statutes was directed against the trammels of state enactments then existing or which might be attempted. In neither can there be discerned a purpose to relieve the railroads from any obligations to their creditors or take from their creditors any remedial process provided by the laws of the State, and, as we have seen, provided by Federal law as well. May it be said that such result follows from the use of property in the public service? A number of cases may be cited against such contention. We have already pointed out what might be contended as its possible if not probable consequences. In a recent case in this court a lien imposed under the law of Michigan upon a vessel to be used in domestic and foreign trade was sustained. To the contention that the enforcement of the lien while the vessel was engaged in interstate commerce was unlawful and

1 SEC. 7. That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to enter into any combination, contract, or agreement, expressed or implied, to prevent. by change of time schedule, carriage in different cars, or by other means or devices, the carriage of freights from being continuous from the place of shipment to the place of destination: and no break of balk, stoppage, or interruption made by such common carrier shall prevent the carriage of freights from being and being treated as one continuous carriage from the place of shipment to the place of destination. unless such, break, stoppage, or interruption was made in good faith for some necessary purpose, and without any intent to avoid or unnece-sarily interrupt sich continuous carriage or to evade any of the prov Jons of this act.

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void in view of the exclusive control of Congress over the subject, we answered: "But it must be remembered that concerning contracts not maritime in their nature, the State has authority to make laws and enforce liens, and it is no valid objection that the enforcement of such laws may prevent or obstruct the prosecution of a voyage of an interstate character. The laws of the States enforcing attachment and execution in cases cognizable in state courts have been sustained and upheld. Johnson v. Chicago & Pacific Elevator Co., 119 U. S. 388. The State may pass laws enforcing the rights of a citizen which affect interstate commerce, but fall short of regulating such commerce in the sense in which the Constitu*ion gives exclusive jurisdiction to Congress. Sherlock et al. v. Alling, 93 U. S. 99, 103; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 23; Fennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Hughes, 191 U. S. 477." The Winnebago, 205 U. S. 354, 362.

The interference with interstate commerce by the enforcement of the attachment laws of a State must not be exaggerated. It can only be occasional and temporary. The obligations of a railroad company are tolerably certain, and provisions for them can be easily made. Their sudden assertion can be almost instantly met; at any rate, after short delay and without much, if any, embarrassment to the continuity of transportation. However, the pending case does not call for a very comprehensive decision on the subject. We only decide that the cars situated as this record tends to show that they were when attached, and the amounts due from the garnishee companies to the C. C. C. & St. L. Ry. Co., were not exempt from process under the state laws, and that the court had, therefore, jurisdiction of them and through them of the C. C. C. & St. L. Ry. Co.

Judgment reversed and the cause remanded with directions to proceed in accordance with this opinion.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES took no part in the decision.

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CHICAGO, ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS AND OMAHA RAILWAY COMPANY v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

No. 133. Argued March 9, 10, 1910.-Decided April 4, 1910.

The acts of May 15, 1856, c. 28, 11 Stat. 9; March 3, 1857, c. 99, 11 Stat. 195, and § 13 of the act of July 12, 1876, c. 179, 19 Stat. 78, providing that mails should be transported over railroads constructed in whole or in part by aid of land grants at eighty per cent of the authorized price, apply to such transportation by companies which carry the mail over a leased line which was partly constructed by such aid, although the transporting company itself received no land grant aid from the Government.

A court does not overlook contentions advanced which are necessarily untrue if the proposition upon which its decision rests is true. The statement of such proposition answers opposing contentions.

The reduction in mail service which the Government exacts in return for land grants for building railroads attaches to all tracks including those subsequently built, and to all companies operating there

over.

43 C. Cl. 595, affirmed; 41 C. Cl. 518, approved.

THE facts, which involve the amount of compensation due for transportation of mail by a railroad company over a railroad constructed in part by grant of land from the Government, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Samuel A. Putman, with whom Mr. Charles W. Bunn was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. John Q. Thompson; Assistant Attorney General, with whom Mr. Philip M. Ashford was on the brief, for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court.

The question in this case is the legality of certain deductions made by the Postmaster General from the amount

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