Kansas City daily journal., 1896-12-18
ASKS FOR GREATER AUTHORITY
OVER THE RAILROADS.
INVESTIGATE JOINT TRAFFIC.
SENATE COMMITTEE INQUIRIES INTO
ITS LEGALITY.
Construction Work Begins To-day on
81. Louis, Oklahoma d Southwest
ernst. Joseph Depot Fight
Grain Goes South
Railway News.

in its tenth annual report submitted to
congress yesterday the interstate commerce
commission asks authority to not merely
prescribe the form of rate schedules, but
also 10 control their contents and arrange
nent. The report says these rate sheets
of the carriers are often so complex as to
be unintelIfgibie to the public. The COM
mission recommends that the laws be
amended.
To confine the procedure in the courts
for enforcement OF orders Of the commits
sion to the record made before the com
mission, and to provide that the order of
the commission snail be enforced unless
the court shall find in the proceeding some
material error which furnishes sufficient
reason for refusing to enforce it.
TO make railroad corporations liable to
Indictment for offenses against the stat
ute as we'll as their officers, agents and
employees.
TO require the carriers TO adopt uni
form freight classification.
To make the rate sheets, reports, and
contracts of carriers on file with the COM
mission, by express provision in the stat
ute competent testimony and prima facie
evidence of what they purport TO be in all
proceedings before the commission or in
the courts.
To permit the commission 10 appoint spe-
ciai agents with the authority to inquire
into the business management of carriers.
To provide for the interchange or trafhc
between connecting roads and the contln-
ueus carriage of freights from point OF
shipment to place of destination
That Ii be made penal offense for any
person to engage in the business OF selllns
Tfrlr 1Ia1a 1
an authorized agent OF the carrier, duly
constituted such by written appointment.
The report says: The practice of giving
passes. or reduced passenger rates TO SHIP
pers or their employees, and OF Issuing com,
Dlimentar-y passes to persons on account
of the profession in which they are en-
gagged or the public duties they perform, is
strongly condemned. No reason is suggest
ed why the penal provisions of the statute
should not he made TO apply to those who,
not coming within the classes specially eX-
cepted in the statute obtain or receive free
passes or reduced passenger rates, as well
as TO those who by any device solicit, OBJ
tain or receive concessions from .estab-
Hshed rates of freight. While such amend
ment would have deterrins influence upon
many who are now willing, If not eager.
to travel free under a pass unlawfuiiy Is
sued by railway official, it seems doubt
full whether that provision alone would OPP
crate to completely suppress this demorai-
3ect is submitted to congress with the gem
eral recommendation that suitable prohib-
ftory legislation be enacted.
Ne recommendations. other than those
contained in previous reports, and different
decisions of the commission, are made con-
cerning the existence of associations to
control freight and passenger traffic. In
this connection the commission says:
"Our present railway mileage is greater
by 100000 miles than it was in 1873, and less
than twenty years ago associations OF all
rail carriers were first organized in the
United States. In 1875, the Southern Rail-
way and Steamship Association. composed
of rail and water lines in the section south
of the Ohio and east iof the Mississippi,
was organized. -Four Eastern trunk lines
formed a like association in 1877 and We're
Joined by two others in 1878, and this or
ganization controlled all west bound traffic
from the seaboard. These associations had
become so multiplied and extended when
the act to regulate commerce was enacted
as TO materially affect. If they did not con-
troll, the entire railroad traffic of the coun-
try Since then they have been reorganized
or continued under revised agreements,
and others have been formed.
They were before that act was passed,
have been since, and are now the means
by which railroad companies cooperate in
transportation matters, including rates on
competitive traffic between competing lines
Before the act took effect competing car
riers pooled their freights and divided
earnings through such associations, and
since that law came into operation all ar
rangements for apportioning or dividing
traffic that have been in use as substitutes
for poeliug or for the regulation or re-
straint of competition have been made ef-
feCtive through such associations. The
Rct makes pooling OF frcights or division
OF earnings unlawful and requires the car
riers to file with the commission copies OF
all traffic contracts or arrangements. thus
making some of such agreements unlawful
and requiring all of them. whether lawful
or otherwise. TO be filed with the commits
sion