Hepburn, William Peters

Hepburn, William Peters,

1833–1916, American legislator, b. Wellsville, Ohio. He was raised in Iowa and entered law there. He was a Civil War cavalry officer. From 1881 to 1887 he served as a Republican Congressman from Iowa. After four years as solicitor of the Treasury, he reentered Congress in 1893, serving 16 years. He was vitally interested in railroad regulation and was for many years chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He drafted the Hepburn Act of 1906, which strengthened the Interstate Commerce CommissionInterstate Commerce Commission
(ICC), former independent agency of the U.S. government, established in 1887; it was charged with regulating the economics and services of specified carriers engaged in transportation between states.
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 (see also rebaterebate,
partial refund of the total price paid for goods or services. In the United States, rebates were historically given by railroads to favored shippers as a return on transportation charges.
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), and was joint author of the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906).

Bibliography

See biography by J. E. Briggs (1919).