The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-07-06
FARLEY FAILS;
FINISH Fight NOW
MILLERs IN VITAL STRUGGLE
FOR JUSTICE.
Issue Of Rates Is Most Important-If
Interstate Commerce Commission
Cannot Help Appeal Will Be Made
to Legislatures and to the Courts.

Nothing definite resulted from yester- /
days conference between L. r. Jamme,
secretary Of the Millers' Federation;
Charles G. Bovey and the traffic men re-
specting the recent cut in wheat rates to
the seaboard Continuance of the cut |
rates will mean curtailment Of production
by Minneapolis mills. No relief is in |
sight. Millers hope for a meeting of |
eastern trunk line men in Chicago to
take UP the matter, but no notice of any
such meeting has yet been received.
When the questions involved in the dis
pute between the Minneapolis millers and
the railroads shall have worked along to
focus, a great fight will be on. Mil
lers say they will never give up; that
they have right on their sde-moral right
and economic right. They will carry the
matter along to the end if it takes wears.
If the interstate commerce commission
cannot help other means will be found
Congress may ultimately have to decide
| the great issue.
! AS the situation stands the railroads
claim the right to conduct their affairs as
their own interests may dictate Millers
! complain that if for any reason the rail-.
roads see fit to cut rates on wheat to
low point they do it. They take the
raw material away from the millers who
have to close their mills, let millions Of
capital lie idle and throw thousands Of
men out of employment They fatly re-
fuse to reduce flour rates in proportion to
wheat and enable the foreign miller to
get American wheat so cheap that he
can make flour of it in Europe much
cheaper than Minneapolis miller can
make 1T here and ship it to Europe.
Sllch action strikes at the third largest
industry in the country, and millers be-
lieve IS a matter serious enough to war
rant governmental attention. When the
railroads find themselves harrassed by
legislation they may change their meth
DDS. That their present action will hasten
such action is considered probable
Bitter Fight, Says Mr.. Rovey.
Charles G.. Bovey says the miliers are
fully alive to the menace in the form of
discriminatory rates; that they have got
to light for existence, and that they will
continue the agitation until the railroads
Change their attitudes or legal means are
found to force them odo it.
Under the present agitation, Mr. Bovey
says, lie questions Of vast import CUES
lions for a legal mind to wrestle with,
Can railroad, to serve it's own ends,
against a great American industry, with
out affording anything by way of compen-
satfon? May a traffic manager base his
methods upon purely selfish view Of con-
ditions and make tariff changes without
regard for possible effect upon others so
long as his own interests are served? Is
there no way by which the rate making
power may be controlled or regulated that
justice may be done?
Those are questions, Mr.. Bovey saws.
too vital to rest short of final decision.
In them is embodied the germ of q great
problem respecting the general attitude
Of railroads towards shippers, that may
find ultimate solution only in the high
courts of the land