The Saint Paul globe., 1905-04-08
WOULD REGULATE
RAIL- WAYS SANELY
President Spencer of the South.
ern Offers Solution of
Problems

PITTSBURG, Pa, April 7.-For the
first time in the history of the traffic
league the three aspects of railroad
traffic were ably represented tonight
in the greatest tonnage originating
point in the world. The occasion was
the third annual banquet of the traffic
club of Pittsburg.
Samuel Spencer president of the
Southern railway, spoke for the rail-
roads; Willis l. King, vice president
of the Jones & Laughlin company, rep
resented. the manufacturers, and Judge
Grosscup of the United States circuit
court, Chicago, upheld the rights of the
people in an address on THE Regener-
alton of the Corporation" There were
40 railroad officials and Pittsburg
manufacturers around the board. In
his address President Spencer said:
If tribunal can be organized. or if
methods can be found-and l believe they
can be without the necessity of an ad-
ditional and special tribunal for the pur
pose-by which the great railway ques-
tions of the day can be settled in accord
ance with law and equity, and in accord
ance with those fundamental principles of
government which are guaranteed by the
constitution. l speak with authority when
/ say that substantially every railway
manager in the country will subscribe, TO
that view, and aid in the accomplishment
of the desired results.
The difficulties of adjustment lie not
as has been so often claimed, in any OBJ
structive defiant attitude of the rail-
way manager. They rest fundamentally
in the anomalous condition in which the
carriers are placed under the law; in those
suggestions of remedy which, failing ut
terly to reach the evils sought to be
necessarily the innocent along with the
guilty; and in those suggestions which
look TO. the separation of one particular
class of property from all others, to be
dealt with invidiously by special tribunal
and by special methods.
Unfair Regulation
1t is not reasonable regulation to which
the carriers object. 1t is to unwiSe and
unfair regulation. 1t is not the regulation
which seeks directly to remedy known and
tangible evils, but it is the so-called regu-
lation which. while ostensibly attacking
one evil, or class of evils, infiicts unknown
and unjustifiable injuries upon those who
are not offenders, and that which under
takes unnecessarily to interfere with the
legal and beneficial freedom of commercial
action. and enterprise, and thus to diminish
the future usefulness of the carriers, and
impede the material development of the
resources of the country.
Substantially every bill which has been
presented in congress looking to granting
Increased powers to the commission has
been so drawn that the ultimate and
necessary effect of its provisions. If enact
ed into law. would be to finally clothe
the commission with that general au-
thority'' which the president. in his con-
servatism, pronounceS undesirable, IL 1t
were not impracticable." Such enact
ments would not be regulation" They
would mean incipient, of not final con-
troll of the sources of revenue of all the
carriers. and that, it is safe TO say, the
president never intended
EIkIns Law Not Fully Tried
There was finally evolved and passed at
the close of the Fifty-seventh congress.
the wise and effective measures known as
the Elkins law. 1t was aimed directly at
che real evils, and went straight to the
mark. II has indirectly accomplished a
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