The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-31

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expanded and developed beyond what any
other nation would think credible. Rates
have been constantly reduced and doubt
less the fiexibility of rates in their sGapta-
ton to business conditions and the eontinu-
al opening of new enterprises, channels of
trade and markets have been largely due to
the face that no bureau has supervised rail-
way traffic.
1t is without doubt true that railway
rates are now much lower than they would
have been had public rate-malxing body
been established twenty years ago; and in
this view it may be said that the creation
of rate bureau would be protection TO
revenues of the roads. This may be So
but railway officials do not desire Il prOtec-
ton which would prevent them from con-
slant efforts to develop the traffic of their
respective lines.
1t would be a sorry day for our country
were a rate-making power given TO any
possible tribunal. Its mere existence would
threaten all energy and enterprise. Its ex-
erclSe would either overturn competitive
conditions. which would be ruinouS or it
would acknowledge them, which is the
present system.
DEMANDS OF THE COMMISSION.
The present demands of the Interstate
commerce Commission, as outlined in their
annual report Just submitted to Congress,
are thus taken up and discussed. In view
of the fact, now generally conceded that
the prohibition of pooling was unwise and
has prevented the obtaining of many good
results hoped for from the passage of the
interstate-commerce law, it seems probable
that Congress will be compelled to authorized
pooling agreements as an aid to the regula
tive statute. The prohibition of pooling
made unjust discrimination inevitable on the
largest possible scale. But in connection
with the proposal to correct this admitted
mistake it is said that rates should be sub
mitted to absolute and effective control.
This proposition is sometimes presented as
though the railroads We're being granted a
favor, in consideration of which a cOnces-
sion should be eXtorted; whereas the legal
izing of pools is for the benefit of shippers
as much or more than of the railroads.
At other times 1t is said that pools Will de-
Stroy competition, and unless rates are con-
trolled they will become excessive; to which
there are two answers; first, pools will not
destroy competition; second, excessive rates
cannot be exacted. History and the testi-
money of experts prove that while pools
tend to regulate competitive excuses, they
do not and never can affect legitimate com
petition or even seriously weaken its vital
ity The making of excessive rates is no
longer practically possible in the United
States. 1t is entire fallacy to suppose
that the rate to be charged on any given
traffic is subject to the decree of the rail-
way traffic manager or even to the decree
of groups of traffic managers. They can re-
duce rates. but except in rare and peculiar
cases they cannot make them higher than
the maXima forced by competitive cOndi-
tions, which control railway rates in sub
stantially every corner OF the land. And the
rare and peculiar cases Will either presently
correct themselves or can be corrected
through existing machinery to that end
The fundamental proposition that the
naming of rates for future use upon inter-
state railway traffic ought not to he made
a subject of congressional legislation should
be unheSitatingly accepted.
The control advocated and asked for by
the commission, Mr. Walker says, is far
BEYOND what Via has been provided for IN the
that the commission seeks to make this
honest effort of the railroads to put their
business under the control of workable
a
and forever hold the power which decisions
of the Supreme Court have recently denied
them. This is not an OVerStatement of their
position The words are as follows refer
ring to the powers of control, without which
they say the granting of pooling privilege
would be little better than crime: Moth
ing less in degree than those outlined in
this report or their equivalent would be
adequate"
The powers outlined in the report and
submitted to Congress for adoption and APP
prevail cover all that widest advocates of a.
bureaucratic system could desire. 1t is not
proposed to recapitulate them. 1t is suffi-
cient to say that they would confer upon
the commission absolute power over all in
terstate railway rates. Not simply over the
rates upon the traffic subject to the pro-
posed pooling agreements, which might be
conceded as a trade. though of itself would
be an unreasonable demand, because such a
concession would not be cognate to the
grant the contract being the thing granted
and over which absolute power is intended
to be given, but power over the rates upon
all traffic subject to the law. The power
desired is the most enormous ever con-
ceived by human intellect. 1t is now exer-
cised through the agency of thousands of
experienced men, each representing not
only the interests of his line, whose i'm
creased business is also his increased bust
ness. 1t is subject to the control of general
laws, above pointed out and also to the
domination of all manner of competitive
forces of carriers by land and by water, of
manufacturers and producers from every
point of the compass, of markets in this
country and throughout the world. For
this arrangement it is calmly proposed to
substitute the Judgment of five men--if
three of the five do not agree-trained as
with a power to ruin industries. boom
towns, to determine whether the Kansas
farmer shall burn his corn for fuel or send
it to the market" and with power at the
same time to make or break every railroad
corporation in the land, to send any rail
road stocks or bonds up or down in the
stock market, to control importations of
every kind and to limit all expectation
(Which, by the way, is involved in rulings
already made by the cOmmission). to ex-
clude Baltimore or Boston or any other city
from the transaction of export business by
changing existing differentials, to array
North against South and East against West
by overturning conditions established by
competition and substituting therefor the
decree of the rule of thumb; in fact. to alb
solutely dominate this land of ours with the
power of pagan conSulS.
In conclusion Mr.. Walker expressed the
opinion that in the face of these proposals
the position of the roads becomes exceed
ingly difficult.