The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1897-09-30
RAILROAD COMMITS SION ACT MAKES
FREE PASSES UNLAWFUL


The two new Railroad Commission
ers, Messrs. Caldwell and Pearson,
whom the Governor has just appointed
to succeed the two Wilson's removed,
will, of course, as soon as they are in
stalled into Office, take up the question
of freight and passenger rates. They
should also take prompt action against
the free pass iniquity. We take this
means of calling their attention to the
fact that the Railroad Commission act
clearly and undeniably makes the Civ
ing Of free passes unlawful, and pro-
vides a penalty. Section of that act
prevents any discrimination "for equal
service" and any violation of the Sec
ton is made ian offence" punishable
"np"n conviction" with a fine of mot
less ,h.n one thousand nor more than
five thousand dollars for each and
every offence. In short the act makes
any railroad indictable for giving free
passes Charging one man three and
one-quarter cents per mile and carry
ing another man free is clearly viola
tiOn of this section.
Section 25 of the same act permits
communication and mileage tickets,
charity, etc but permits free passes
only to employees and officers of the
roads and by exchange with connect
ing roads. There is proviso to this
section which permits Railway Com
missioners to suspend the exceptions
in that section Ii. e. issuing mileage
books, communication books, etc. but
does not allow them to suspend the
general prohibition in section 4 to
which the aforesaid exceptions in Sec
tion % are permitted.
Now section of the Railway Com
mission law is an exact copy of section
2 OF the Interstate Commerce Com
mission act with an addition to which
we will refer in a moment, and section
Is of our State Commission act Is a
copy of section % of that act; and the
Interstate Commerce Commission,
presided over by that eminent lawyer,
Judge Thomas N. Cooley, (author Ct
Constitutional Limitat ions) has uni
formly held, in at least seven reported
cases, that those words prohibited any
free passes except to railway en-
ployees and officers of the road.
The wording of the North Carolina
Railroad Commission act is identi-
cal with those in the Interstate Com
MERGE Commission act, except that the
latter act does not contain the making
it an ''offense" punishable "upon con-
viction" with fine, and for that reason
and that only, it has been decided that
the Interstate Commission could on
~ declare THAT the giving of free pass
es to other persons than railway EN-.
ployees was prohibited BY law, but
that they could not enforce the law or
any order that they might issue, con-
corning free passes for the reason that
the Interstate Commerce Conmis-
sion at failed to make q violation of
the law an offence or provide any way
for Furnishing the same. Therefore.
when our North Carolina Railway
Commission act was written the au-
thors of the bill were careful to pro-
vide that . violation of the law was an
offence punishable by ane upon con-
viction. Therefore there can be no
mistake about the intent of the le9i.-
lature or the meaning of the Railroad
Commission Dot on this point. The
giving of free passes 10 unlawful I'M
der the.lpresent law. The Railroad
Commission should enforce this law.
and our Superior Court Judges should
charge the grand juries to bring IN an
indictment against any railroad known
to have violated it.