when the Chief justice spoke of the maximum rate in the Edson case he
was governed by mental impressions received previous to 1879, when the
maximum rate was indeed the rule in California."

All this was a very pretty theory. To the common-sense mind "conform to
the rates fixed" might mean conform to them; the normal man might be
unable to dig out of the Constitution any prohibition of absolute rates.
But the confusion caused by the raising of the question got the Stetson
bill very much in the air.

During all the discussion, however, the Wright bill was not considered
at all. Nobody was thinking of the Wright bill - that is to say, nobody
outside of those scheming for its passage. Like a mongrel duck's egg
under a respectable hen, it was left to incubate undisturbed, to
surprise everybody at the hatching.

Finding themselves unable to clear away the doubt which raising the
question of the constitutionality of the absolute rate had created, the
anti-machine Senators and the attorneys of the shippers finally, after
the Wright bill had been forced into prominence, put the case something
like this:

"If the Courts decide that the maximum rate only is constitutional, then
the Wright bill, which provides for the maximum rate, will be
constitutional, and the greater part of the Stetson bill will also be
constitutional.

"But if the Courts decide that an absolute rate is the only rate
justified under the Constitution, then the Wright bill will be
unconstitutional and all the Stetson bill constitutional."