Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-05-13

Washington, D. c., May PA.
B. Stickney, president of the Chi
cago Great Western railroad to.
day filed with the senate commit
tee on interstate commerce, a
statement in favor of giving the
interstate commerce commission
power to fix rates. He says the
commission would be the most sat
isfactory arbitrator possible.
Washington, D. G., May 12.-Presi-
dent Roosevelt's vigorous declarations
respecting the railroad rate question
and the manner in which the country
received them have wrtng from Sena-
tor Elkins, chairman of the senate
committee on interstate commerce,
the announcement that COM
mittee will recommend legisla-
tion for the correction of the evils COM
planned of. He took advantage of the
presence Of Governor Cummins of
Iowa to state that If he would give the
committee his confidence 1--WE will
bring in a good smany amendment
that you will approve"
Governor Cummins had just made a
strong plea for rate legislation yester-
day afternoon, insisting that existing
laws are fatally weak with respect to
open discrimination and that nothing
would cure the defect save authority
vested in the commission to fix rate
in place of the one rejected. The COM
mittee has been sedulously spreading
the view that existing laws are ample
| If only properly enforced, and every
railroad official and attorney testified
| in this sense.
Elkins endeavored to tangle up the
| Iowa governor in order to have him
make admissions damaging to the
cause he was advocating but succeed
ed only in getting the answer, IF what
you say is correct there is no reason
for an yamendments." Elkins then
admitted there is room for amend
ments and promised that many of
them would be made which Governor
Cummins would approve.
! Railroads Not PhlIanthropic.
Governor, Cummin spoke in part as
| follows:
The chief, if not the only, issue be.
| fore us, as / understand it, Is this:
Shall congress invest commission
composed Of men competent to per.
/
charged upon them, with the authority
to fix a railroad rate in the stead OF
one established by the railways, but
which has been, after due hearing
condemned under the law as 1t now ex
| lists?
aThe complacent suggestion that
the railways as an entirety are doing
business more for the benefit of their
patrons than themselves is not well
founded in fact 1t is perfectly clear
that they are exacting more than a
fair return upon the capital invested
in their properties.
Theoretically considered, the pro
posal to give to a commission the
authority to fix a rate, after hearing
i is much less radical, much less dan
j gerous than to give to a court and
jury the authority to render judgment
for an overcharge. Therefore, in the
bill you have before you, there is moth
ling essentially new, and if 1t passes
congress it is exercising only part O
the power, which, from the beginning
of our civilization, governments have
exercised over common carriers.
i Congress has already rendered the
\ lay as efficient as it can be SO far al
secret rebates or secret discrimina
tions of any kind are concerned. Wha
has not been done is to furnish rem
Iedy, first for an excessive rate which
discriminate between kinds of traffic
and localities.
Existing Law Fatally Weak.
"That the existing law is fatal!
weak with respect to open discrimina
tions, and that nothing, will cure th'
defect save the authority in the com
mission to fix rate. in the place of on
; rejected is not seriously controverted