Cornell operates tugboats for hire on the Hudson River and in and about New York harbor. Its tugs carry no cargo but move scows, barges, and similar vessels belonging to others which themselves usually carry cargo. This towing service Cornell offers to perform for the public in general. About ninety-five per cent of the vessels which it serves are moved from points in New York to other points in the same State, but these movements generally traverse New Jersey as well as New York waters. Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act provides that contract or common carriers by water in interstate commerce are subject to the Act's regulating provisions. In appropriate proceedings the Interstate Commerce Commission held Cornell's business covered. Cornell Steamboat Co. Contract Carrier Application, 250 I.C.C. 301; Id., 250 I.C.C. 577. A three judge District Court sustained the Commission's order. 53 F.Supp. 349. The case is here on direct appeal. 28 U.S.C. §§ 47a, 345, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 47a, 345.
First. Cornell argues that its towboats are not 'water carriers' within the meaning of Part III of the Act. Looking at Part III, we find that, read together, §§ 302(c), (d) and (e) define a 'water carrier' as any person who engages in the 'transportation by water * * * of * * * property * * * for compensation.' Section 302(h) defines 'transportation' as including 'all services in or in connection with transportation', as well as 'the use of any transportation facility.' Any 'vessel', which means any 'watercraft', § 302(f), is such a facility. § 302(g). Congress has thus carefully and explicitly set out the conditions which in combination describe the kinds of carriers it intended to subject to regulation. Cornell's tugboats fall squarely within the description. If further proof of this be needed, §§ 303(f) (1) and (2) expressly exempt from regulation under Part III certain types of towage service, but not that such as Cornell provides. Congress hardly would have exempted some towers, as it did in these sections, had it intended to exempt all towers.
Nevertheless, Cornell argues that the Act's language, which appears on its face plainly to include transportation by means of towers, should not be so construed. In support of this contention, it is said that towers do not have that common law or statutory liability to shippers which generally attaches to common carriers, see Sun Oil Co. v. Dalzell Towing Co., Inc., 287 U.S. 291, 53 S.Ct. 135, 77 L.Ed. 311; cf. The Murrell, D.C., 200 F. 826; and that a 'carrier' has been judicially defined as one who undertakes to transport the goods of another, a definition not inclusive of Cornell, since it does not make contracts to carry goods but only to move vessels which have goods on them. See Sacramento Nav. Co. v. Salz, 273 U.S. 326, 328, 47 S.Ct. 368, 369, 71 L.Ed. 663; The Propeller Niagara, etc., v. Cordes, 62 U.S. 7, 22, 16 L.Ed. 41. But the authorities relied upon by Cornell are of little or no assistance here. The case at bar does not require that we determine at large the legal obligations of a tower or define the usual characteristics of a carrier. We are called upon only to interpret a single Act of Congress. With unquestioned power to regulate Cornell's business, Congress in this Act has given its own definition to Cornell's activities in words literally inclusive of those activities, and which operate to subject to the Act interstate activities in the business of towing, which at common law was a common calling. Sproul v. Hemmingway, 14 Pick., Mass., 1, 6, 25 Am.Dec. 350. The Act in which Congress has included this definition is designed, not to determine the legal status of vessels for all purposes, but to provide for regulation of the rates and services of competing interstate water carriers as part of a broad plan of regulation for all types of competing interstate transportation facilities. Cornell is in active competition with other types of interstate water carriers as well as with trucks and railroads. Therefore, if Cornell's particular method of providing water transportation facilities for others is not subject to regulation under the Act, it would appear to present an anomalous exception to the Congressional plan for regulation of competing transportation activities. We conclude that the language of the Act brings Cornell's business within its coverage, and that to construe the Act otherwise would frustrate the purpose of Congress.