148 VALUATION, DEPRECIATION AND THE RATE-BASE
duties and powers of a public service commission. Georgia, Ore-
gon, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Maryland, Colorado, Florida, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
South Carolina, Vermont and other states started off with a
railroad commission. Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey,
New Hampshire and Oklahoma have their public service com-
missions more or less liberally endowed with powers of regula-
tion and control.
Supreme Court of Wisconsin on the Powers of the Railroad
Commission. — All the powers which a public service commis-
sion has are conferred upon it directly by the people or by
legislative enactment. Its function is to make administrative
regulations. Its powers are not legislative. On this point the
Supreme Court of Wisconsin says (Minn. St. Paul and Sault
Ste Marie Ry. Co. vs. Railroad Com. of Wis., 136 Wis. 146):
“ The division of the governmental powers into executive,
legislative and judicial, while of great importance in the creation
or organization of a State, and form the viewpoint of institu-
tional law and otherwise, is not an exact classification. No such
exact delimitation of governmental powers is possible. In the
process of enacting a law there is frequently necessary the pre-
liminary determination of a fact or a group of facts by the
Legislature, and it is well settled that the Legislature may de-
clare the general rule of law to be in force and take effect upon
the subsequent establishment of the facts necessary to make it
operative or to call for its application. . . . The Legislature
may delegate any power, not legislative, which it may itself
rightfully exercise. This power to ascertain facts is such a
power as may be delegated. . . . This law established, and
thenceforth assumes the existence of rates, charges, classifica-
tions and services, discoverable by investigation but undisclosed,
which are exactly reasonable and just. It commits to the Rail-
road Commission the duty to ascertain and disclose that par-
ticular rate, charge, classification or service. The law intends
that there is only one rate charge or service that is reasonable
and just. When the order of the Commission is set aside by the
Court, it is because this reasonable and just rate, charge, classifi-
cation or service has not yet been correctly ascertained. When
the order of the Commission has been rescinded or changed by
