Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-30
|WOUL DADDAUTHOR|TY
Senator Fulton's View on
Interstate Commission.
DECLARES IT USELESS
SHOULD HAVE MORE POWER OR
BE ABOLISHED.
Suggests the Prohibition of Private
Car Concerns-Is in Favor Of a
Revision Of the Tariff.

Senator Fulton of Oregon who Is In the
city OH departmental business, was at the
Treasury Department today. When he was
asked what Congress would do this winter
as to railroad rebate legislation, he said:
Il cannot speak for Congress, but my
own view is that we ought to give more
authority to the interstate commerce COM
mission or abolish 1t altogether. 1t is al
most useless as it is now. My idea would
be to give the commission authority to In
quire into charges of discrimination and
rebate and to fix maximum rates. I am
not in favor OF the proposition TO permit the
commission to name maximum and mini
mum rates.
Present Laws Explicit.
The present laws are plain in denouncing
and prohibiting rebates, and 1t seems to me
that the Department of Justice will be able
to see that they are enforced In case the
interstate commerce commission is abol-
ished. We do not have a commission to
prevent counterfeiting and why have COM
mission to prevent rebates and discrtmina-
ton in freight rates unless we are going
to give it sufficient authority to put a stop
to these practices?
"As to the private car system, believe
that this ought to be turned over to the
Interstate commerce commission also.
think about as good way any would
be to prohibit private car concerns entirely
and require the railroads to take over the
work of furnishing all the facilities for
transportation. The roads would then be
amenable to transportation laws. AS it is
now, the private car lines claim that they
are not subject to the existing interstate
commerce laws, not being transportation
companies.
Favors Tariff Revision.
"As to tariff revision. my opinion is that
the coming session should take up tariff
revision in earnest and make changes in
some of the schedules. / do not believe the
revision should be radical or that it should
be made for the purpose of increasing the
revenues of the government. There are
other ways of doing that. The revision
should be for the purpose of doing away
with some of the injustices that have
grown up with the changes in our COM
mercial history. Where the existing sched-
ules result in unreasonable profits to manu-
facturers they should be changed, but the
protective principle must be maintained
throughout.
There are a good many ways of increas-
ing the revenues of the government, but
have not given definite thought to them.
have read with interest the suggestion that
an additional tax be put on coffee. It
might be a good plan. While I have not
studied this sufficiently to commit myself to
the proposition 1t appeals to me as possibly
having some good features. Such a tax
might result in the United States building
up a great coffee industry within its pos
sessions and save the millions of money
that now goes out to Brazil and elsewhere.
If Brazil thought the consequence or such
a tax would be the upbuilding OF the coffee
industry within our own territory she
would quickly take off the export tax she
now places on coffee shipments. A coffee
tax would be in line with our protective
policy and would cause no hardship on the
people generally, inasmuch as 1t would
hardly be felt If Brazil should take off her
export tax the retail price of coffee in this
country would not be affected at all"