Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-09


He dwelt with particular severity on deals
between scalpers and managers.
BOSTON, January 8.-The annual dinner
of the Boston Merchants Association,
which took place here this evening in the
Hotel Vendome, proved al occasion of un-
usual significance. Among the invited
guests were as follows: Hon. T. NJ. Cooley,
of Washington, Chairman of the Interstate
Commerce Commission; Prof. Richard f.
Ely, of Johns Hopkins University; Francis
B. Thurber, Governor Ames, President
Capen, of Tufts College; General Francis
A.. Walker, Josiah III. Benton, Jr., and
General N. P. Banks.
After the dinner combination and com-
petition" and allied subjects were announced
as the topics for discussion, and while upon
his feet Judge Cooley, of the Interstate
Commission, substantially said:
Il believe ! am expected to say something on
the subject of combinations and concentrations
of interests, with special references to the
business of transportation of persons and
property by railroad. do not understand that
the question of the repeal of the interstate
Commerce Act is to be discussed at this time,
and if it were | do not know that | should care
to speak upon it. Imay say, however, that the
act has a good purpose in view.
DESIGN OF THE ACT.
It was intended to correct enormous abuses
previously existing, but they cannot be cor
rected without cutting off some sources of I'M
proper income. The urgent call for a moditi-
cation of the act which comes from railroad
circles has sprung up recently. There we're in
deed some objections made to it Immediately
after its passage, as well as before, but when it
was given effect it was found. quite to the sur
prise of some who had prophesied disaster to
the railroads from it, that the disasters did not
follow.
1 desire to call special attention to this fact:
That the period during which the law operated
most to the benefit Of the railroads was pre-
cisely that during which its provisions were
best observed. l think that to be an un-
deniable fact, and if it is a fact. it is deserving
of more attention than up to this time it has
received from the managers of railroads. 1t
was also the period during which the law was
complained Of least. There are very vigorous
complaints now. They relate mainly to the
cause of the act which forbids the greater
charge on the shorter haul on the same line.
in the same direction where the circumstances
and conditions are similar, and that which
makes pooling unlawful.
The aforementioned clause embodies a prin-
ciple right in itself. In large sections of the
with it and not suffered loss from doing so. In
others 1t was not practicable to do so, at least
Immediately. But the difficulties will diminish
as the managers come to better understanding
among themselves.
OPEN TO H PUBLIC
The law intends that railroad business of the
country shall be done openly and with full pub
licity. This equal and just purpose of the law
is defeated by contrivances that are c. early op-
posed to the intent of the law if not to fits
terms. Now, when parties are thus busy in
contriving methods for rendering the law Of no
effect, their ~evasions of its purpose are seen to
have a direct tendency to diminish the corpor-
ate revenues. They are hardly the parties to
put themselves upon the stand to prove that
the law is injuring the roads.
must insist that the argument now made
for pooling is radically nnsound and vicious,
because it rests upon an assumption that viola
ton of law by one is justification for violation
by another. The sentiment in railroad circles
on this subject is not only opposed to sound
public morality. but it necessarily tends to the
perpetuation of the very evils under which the
roads are now suffering. For a very large pro-
portion of railroad controversies voluntary
pooling cannot possibly be a remedy, for the
obvious reason that they contain matters which
have 10 be settled before there can be any pool
ing. They concern the sub-structure, so to
speak.
Pooling with a legal sanction would have all
the elements of weakness that attended the old
pooling, except one. When the pool as it used
to be formed broke up. there was no enforcing
such obligations as had been incurred while it
existed; there was no compelling payment of
balances. With a legalized pooling there might
be power to do this.
TRUST AND POOLS.
The difference between a trust and a pool is
almost as great as that between 4 despot on the |
throne and the player who mimics him on the
stage. Pools are things to be feared. They an
tagon1ze a leading and most valuable principle
of industrial life in their attempt, not to curb
competition merely, but to put an end to it. All
these things go to show that something else
needs reforming besides the law. 1t is poor
reformatory work that the law can do in any
line of business unless the moral forces in the
same business come to its support.
L have spoken of the want of reformatory
power in the law. One who investigates rail-
road disorders will be surprised to find how
many of them, though plainly opposed to the
spirit of the law, may still be practiced legally.
Rate-cutting in passenger service is verylargely
done by the use of tickets which the law ex-
pressly exempts from its provision, and coupon
tickets are so manipulated by one company as
to cut the rates of another without the other
being a participant of otherwise than it suffers
from a fraud practiced upon it.
A crying evil in railroad service is the COM
bination between the scalper and the I'M
scrupulous General Passenger Agent. This
will be broken up Just as soon as there are ap-
piled in railroad matters the maXims of bust
ness prudence which are expected to control in
other interests. If the combination in the
same person of the two characters of railroad
manager, in whatever official position-and 4 of
Spectator in railroad stocks could be rendered
impossible, we might hope to see the time when
the question what is right and wrong in rail-
road matters would be heard good deal oftener
than it is now and the question what can be
done in evasion of the law without encounter
ing its penalties a good deal more infrequently.