been amended. It also provides that a common carrier violating the clause forbidding it after January 1, 1907, directly or indirectly to issue or to give any interstate free ticket, free pass or free transportation for passengers should pay to the United States a penalty of not less than $100 nor more than $2,000. Any person (other than those of the excepted classes) who used any such interstate free ticket, free pass or free transportation became subject to a like penalty. Ib. 585, § 1.

The state circuit court, giving the relief asked, by its judgment required the railroad company to issue to the plaintiffs and to each of them a pass over its lines and branches for the year 1909, and thereafter to renew such passes annually during their respective lives.

Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals of Kentucky that judgment was affirmed. L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Mottley, 133 Kentucky, 652.

It may be, as suggested, that a refusal to enforce the agreement of 1871 will operate as a great hardship upon the defendants in error. But that consideration cannot control the determination of this controversy. Our duty is to ascertain the intention of Congress in passing the statute upon which the railroad company relies as prohibitive of the further enforcement of the agreement in suit. That intention is to be gathered from the words of the act, interpreted according to their ordinary acceptation, and, when it becomes necessary to do so, in the light of the circumstances as they existed when the statute was passed. Platt v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 99 U. S. 48, 64. The court cannot mold a statute simply to meet its views of justice in a particular case. Having, in the mode indicated, ascertained the will of the legislative department, the statute as enacted must be executed, unless found to be inconsistent with the Supreme Law of the Land.

In our consideration of the case it will be assumedindeed the parties themselves assume that the agree

ment of 1871 was not when made in conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States. But we must first inquire whether such an agreement, if made after the passage of the original and amendatory commerce acts, would have been valid under those acts. If those acts forbid agreements of that character we must then inquire whether the one in suit can be now enforced simply because it was valid when made.

The act of February 4, 1887 regulating commerce declared it to be an unjust and unlawful discrimination for any carrier subject to the provisions of that act, directly or indirectly, by any special rate, rebate, drawback or other device, to charge, demand, collect or receive from any person or persons "a greater or less compensation" for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property than was charged, demanded, collected or received from any other person or persons for doing him or them a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions. 24 Stat. 379, c. 104, § 2. But the act of June 29, 1906 made a material addition to the words of the act of 1887; for, it expressly prohibited any carrier, unless otherwise provided, to demand, collect or receive "a greater or less or different compensation" for the transportation of persons or property, or for any service in connection therewith, than the rates, fares and charges specified in the tariff filed and in effect at the time. We cannot suppose that this change was without a distinct purpose on the part of Congress. The words "or different," looking at the context, cannot be regarded as superfluous or meaningless. We must have regard to all the words used by Congress, and as far as possible give effect to them. Market v. Hoffman, 101 U. S. 112, 115. The history of the acts relating to commerce shows that Congress, when introducing into the act of 1906 the word "different," had in mind the pur

pose of curing a defect in the law and of suppressing evil practices under it by prohibiting the carrier from charging or receiving compensation except as indicated in its published tariff. 11th Ann. Rep. Interstate Com. Com., 141; 19th Ib. 78, 15; 40 Cong. Rec. Pt. 7, p. 6608; Ib. 6617; Ib. 7428, 7434; Rept. of Confer. Com., 40 Cong. Rec. 9522; 42 Cong. Rec. Pt. 2, p. 1746.

In our opinion, after the passage of the commerce act the railroad company could not lawfully accept from Mottley and wife any compensation "different" in kind from that mentioned in its published schedule of rates. And it cannot be doubted that the rates or charges specified in such schedule were payable only in money. They could not be paid in any other way, without producing the utmost confusion and defeating the policy established by the acts regulating commerce. The evident purpose of Congress was to establish uniform rates for transportation, to give all the same opportunity to know what the rates were as well as to have the equal benefit of them. To that end the carrier was required to print, post and file its schedules and to keep them open to public inspection. No change could be made in the rates embraced by the schedules except upon notice to the Commission and to the public. But an examination of the schedules would be of no avail and would not ordinarily be of any practical value if the published rates could be disregarded in special or particular cases by the acceptance of property of various kinds, and of such value as the parties immediately concerned chose to put upon it, in place of money for the services performed by the carrier.

That money only was receivable for transportation is the basis upon which the Interstate Commerce Commission has proceeded; for, in one of its Conference Rulings (207) issued in 1909, the Commission held that nothing but money could be lawfully received or accepted in payment for transportation, whether of passengers or

property, for any service connected therewith, "it being the opinion of the Commission that the prohibition against the charging or collecting a greater or less or different compensation than the established rates or fares in effect at the time precludes the acceptance of service, property or other payment in lieu of the amount specified in the published schedules." It is now the established rule that a carrier cannot depart to any extent from its published schedule of rates for interstate transportation on file without incurring the penalties of the statute. Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Goodridge, 149 U. S. 690, 691; Gulf, Col. &c. Ry. Co. v. Hefley, 158 U. S. 98, 102; I. C. C. v. Ches. & Ohio Ry. Co., 200 U. S. 361, 391; Texas & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 439. That rule was established in execution of a public policy which, it seems, Congress deliberately adopted as applicable to the interstate transportation of persons or property. The passenger has no right to buy tickets with services, advertising, releases or property, nor can the railroad company buy services, advertising, releases or property with transportation. The statute manifestly means that the purchase of a transportation ticket by a passenger and its sale by the company shall be consummated only by the former paying cash and by the latter receiving cash of the amount specified in the published tariffs. In the first of the cases last above cited (the Goodridge case) the court, referring to the practice of allowing rebates, said: "So opposed is the policy of the act to secret rebates of this description that it requires a printed copy of the classification and schedule of rates to be posted conspicuously in each passenger station for the use of the patrons of the road, that every one may be apprised, not only of what the company will exact of him for a particular service, but what it exacts of every one else for the same service, so that in fixing his own prices he may know precisely with what he has to compete. To hold a defense thus pleaded to be

valid would open the door to the grossest frauds upon the law, and practically enable the railroad company to avail itself of any consideration for a rebate which it considers sufficient, and to agree with the favored customer upon some fabricated claim for damages which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to disprove. For instance, under the defense made by this company, there is nothing to prevent a customer of the road, who has received a personal injury, from making a claim against the road for any amount he chooses, and in consideration thereof, and of shipping all his goods by that road, receiving a rebate for all goods he may ship over the road for an indefinite time in the future. It is almost needless to say that such a contract could not be supported. There is no doubt of the general proposition that the release of an unliquidated claim for damages is a good consideration for a promise, as between the parties, and if no one else were interested in the transaction, that rule might apply here; but the legislature, upon grounds of public policy, and for the protection of third parties, has made certain requirements with regard to equality of rates which, in their practical application, would be rendered nugatory if this rule were given full effect." That Congress had the constitutional power to adopt such a policy and to prescribe appropriate means to give it effect, we do not doubt.

It is said, however, that as the contract of Mottley and wife with the railroad company was originally valid, it cannot be supposed that Congress intended by the act of 1906 to annul or prevent its enforcement. But the purpose of Congress was to cut up by the roots every form of discrimination, favoritism and inequality, except in the cases of certain excepted classes to which Mottley and his wife did not belong and which exceptions rested upon peculiar grounds. Manifestly, from the face of the commerce act itself, Congress, before taking final action, considered the question as to what exceptions, if any, should