Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-03

track. the Great Northern moved 1000.00O
tons OF freight at an average OF $2.51S per
ton, while In 1905 with 6,59S miles of track,
II moved 6.146,O00 tons at an average rate
OF .S57 per ton. And he called the atten-
ton Of the committee to the fact that IL
Great Northern had received In 1908 the rate
that was In force twenty-one years earlier
its income from this source alone would
have been 500. $40 900. instead OF $SO.915,OOO.
or $50. 904. 600 in excess Of what was received
from freight charges in 1903. This, he con-
tended, was an example OF the benefits OF
the untrammeled and unrestricted methods
OF making rates. and he challenged any one
to say II was not good one.
Testimony Of President Mather.
After The Stars report closed yesterday
afternoon Mr.. Robert Mather. president Of
the Rock Island Company. chairman of the
executive committee OF the c.. r. l. and p.
Ry. Company and general counsel of the
Rock Island and of the Frisco system, was
heard by the committee. Mr.. Mather said.
in part:
THE evils of secret rebates were ended
by the passage of the Elkins act, in 1908,
and the concededly general acquiescence of
the carriers In its requirements. The only
evil demanding additional legislation Is pref
erence between localities, and the question
under consideration then resolves itself into
this: Is 1t necessary or desirable that the
interstate commerce commission should be
given the rate-making power In order that
preferences between localities shall cease?
The proposed legislation is not necessary,
for there seems to be nothing in the COM
mercial or financial situation of the coun-
try which demands such a radical depar-
ture from plan of rate-making which has
long been established and under which our
commerce has grown to its present stu
pendous proportions No section of the
country and practically no community fails
to feel the force and to share in the profit
of the great Industrial impetus of today
Nowhere is trade languishng or the inn
plement of commerce idle. If the situation
were otherwise, IL there were general COM
mercial depression, or even II here and
there communities could be picked out that
were not sharing in the prevalent prosper
ity, there might be necessity to inquire into
the reason and to provide a remedy. but no
such condition confronts this Congress. 1t
will be admitted to be correct expression
of our industrial condition today, so far as
the interests of the different communities
are affected by charges for transportation,
that they have been fairly we'll and impair
TALLY provided for by the system of rates
established and maintained by the railways.
Misled by the Commission.
1T was demonstrated, out of the mouths
of the commission itself, that the enormous
additions in recent years to the cost of
railway transportation, to which their re-
port called the attention of the public. was
not only much less than the enormous re-
duction in the cost of railway transporta
ton effected by reductions in rates in pre-
ceding years, but was justified by the prin-
ciple, approved by the commission. that the
reductions made on account Of commercial
depression may be restored with the return
of business prosperity. Yet the commits
sion. in support of it's crusade for greater
power, loses no opportunity to give the
public the impression that rates are eXtor-
tomato and determinations rampant. The
public has been further misled in the belief
that the power to make rate under a spe
cific complaint does not involve the power to
make rates generally. We have the opinion
of the Supreme Court to the contrary. If.
therefore, the Esch-Townsend bill, or any
thing like it, becomes law the entire power
to make all rates is confided to the COM
mission and withdrawn from the railways
This is a result which there is no evidence
that the people desire and which the Presi-
dent himself does not want