Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-13
sCORPCSATE RJsF.

| A CORPCRATE kCST.
The decision of the United States Su-
preme Court reversing Judge Gresham in
! the Counselman case, and holding that the
| provision of the interstate commerce act
with reference to the testimony of wit
nesseS in matters that might criminate
| themselves is unconstitutional, goes Tar 10
| complete the process of minimizing the
regulative power of that enactment
We are unable to quarrel much with de-
| ciSions of the Supreme Court. The de-
vice by which the law got around the con-
stitutional provision against witnesses
being required to criminate themselves
| always appeared one Of its weak points.
But it is not less important that the de-
clsion goes far toward reducing the law to
a nullity, and reveals the clever device by
which the railway interest has secured
this result.
Since the notification Of the anti-pooling
clause of the interstate commerce law,
aud the general haziness that surrounds
the enforcement Of the provisions against
determinations between localities, its sole
important feature was its strong enact
ment against preferences between ship
pers. So long as these could be enforced
the law retained importance. But this
decision wipes out that value. The only
people cognizant to the grant of pre-
ferential rates are the railway officials who
grant it and the shippers who receive it.
Both parties under the law in its present
shape are criminal participants; and there
hi ha
called upon to testify. The chances Of
enforcing the law are therefore reduced
to the rare cases in which the discrimina-
ton is disclosed by accident, or the utterly
unheard of contingency that one of the
participants shall throw away the chance
of fortune contained in those practices
and turn States evidence The result is
that the whole practice of rebates, draw
backs and secret rates is rendered nearly
as safe as before the passage of the act.
Beyond the importance of this fact there
is decided significance in the method by
which this result has been attained. The
law as it was first enacted did not make
shippers who received preferential rates
subject to its criminal penalties. There
was therefore fighting chance to prove
violations of the law, by calling the
shippers into court and making them
testify. But in the second year of the act
the railway interests came before Congress
with plea Of innocence and impotence.
'We wish to obey the act" they said,
shut the wicked shippers are constantly
importuning US for special advantages
and we cannot refuse them. Make them
subject to the criminal penalties of the
act, and we can secure perfect obedience
to the law" There was an ap-
parent force to the plea. The
favored shippers were on the face
of the matter recipients of the plunder,
the beneficiaries of the violation of law
Congress and the public might have given
some weight to the consideration, pointed
out at the time by THE DISPATCH, that
the violation of law was founded in the
disregard Of the public obligations of the
railways; that the favored shippers were
neither subject to those obligations nor
possessed of any power in the premises,
and that their sole attitude in the matter
was to seek for their private business the
best rates they could get. But the surface
plausibility of the railway plea was ac-
cepted, and the amendment was passed.
The result shows the cleverness of the
ruse. All the parties to a secret discrimi-
nation being subject to its criminality, all
evidence of its perpetration is shut off.
The amendment urged to make the en-
forcement of the law complete turns out
to be the method of its complete nullifca-
ton. The evidence that the original form
of the law was the correct one may sug-
gest the return to that form as promptly
as possible. But more important moral
is that the propositions of the railway in
tereSt protesting to be measures for the
complete abolition of their self-inflicted
abuses are to be distrusted as deeply as
the Greeks bearing gifts.