Omaha daily bee., 1889-09-26
In SEARCH OF INFORMATION.
Iowa Railroad Commissioners Pre-
pare Lengthy Catechism.
THE RESULT NOT SATISFACTORY
The Companies Ignore Some of Them
and to Others Return Evasiye
Answers Prosecutions Will
Follow-Hawkcyc News.
CORPORATION Impudence,

DEs MONIES, Ia, Sept. % - Special Tele-
gram TO THE BEE. Tho railroad commits.
sioners of Iowa are in searcn of information,
and they are after the kind which the rail
ways are not anxious to diyulge, hence there
is likely to be another contest between the
railways and the commission, and Governor
Larrabee may have another chance to get in
his work before he retires from Office. This
Is the season of the year when by law the
railroads are to mako reports to the railroad
commissions of the property of the roads,
amount of business done, earnings, expenses
etc. For this purpose the commissioners
weeks ago sent to the proper officials of the
roads blank books containing the questions
which they desired to have answered. The
list of questions sent out is extremely
long, filling forty odd large pages.
The main questions are the ones
prepared and sent out by the Interstate
commerce commission, but the Iowa COM
missioner saw fit to go into details and so
made numerous changes as well as additions
to the questions of the national commission.
After the commission had worked faithfully
in overhauling the list of questions they
were submitted to the governor ana he
added q long list. The reports are now
beng received at the office of the commits
sioners and upon examination they find that
not all of the questions have been answered.
not nearly all. In the blank books where
the answers to some of the questions should
have been written, are the words: mot
prepared to state.n "Do not keep statistics
of that kind" and similar sentences. In one
or two instances there are long explanations
to tho effect that there has been no
separate record kept of the facts desired by
the commissioners and by the govern or, but
that they will hereafter keep their records
in conformity with the purposes of the COM
missioner.
To-day Secretary Aiusworth, of the COM
mission. sent a letter TO the governor, calling
attention to these derelictions of tho rail
ways. In it he discoses tho following facts:
The Mason City & Fort Dodge railway re-
port does not give the names of the stock
holders and neither does the Humeston Il
Shenandoah. The Minneapolis Il st. Louis
makes no report of the points in question.
The Burlington, Cedar Rapids 81 Northern
makes no report and even returns the blank
with the questions OF the governor torn out.
None of the questions are answered by tho
Burlington 81 Western, nor by the Buring-
ton & Northwestern.
1T will be seen by this that these are only
minor companies, the principal companies
not having yet filed their report. They
will be looked for with interest
The questions which We're prepared by the
governor, and which have been ignored,
We're:
/. Names of the stockholders, their resi-
dence and amount of stock.
2. Salary paid to general officers down to
division superinten dent.
3. Average daily wages paid to employees
from station agent down
4. Names OF regular and other attorneys
employed during the past year, and compen-
Sation.
5. Number and total mileage of so-called
1000 and 1000 mile tickets issued for other
than cash consideration, and whether said
mileage tickets are included in the gross re-
Ceipts.
The governor evidently means business.
The law gives him power to call for any IN
formation he deems important and provides
a penalty on the refusal of any company to
comply. A large number of cases have al
ready been placed in the hands of Attorney
General Stone by the railroad commission to
compel the railways to obey and carry out
their decision.