The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-20
WRESTLING TO KEEP THEIR
COURAGE UP.
THEIR

The railroad officials have been
very busy since the Senate comlnittee
has been hearing the arguments of
the railroad men against the House
bill. The testimony If the railroad
officials HIS not been exploited, but
the chance testimony of parties adj
vertised as manufacturers and college
presidents has been widely advertised,
and now comes the Railroad Record
claiming that sentiment is changing
to hostility to the bill. The Record
says:
Railway managers are very mucf
encouraged at the change which is
taking place in public opinion. A
few weeks ago the whole country
seemed to be bent on having en-
gress give the Interstate Commerce
Commission power to fix rates. To-
day there is strong opposition to the
proposition, and the sentiment is be-
coming more widespread every day.
This change in opinion is due to
the facts brought out before the Sem
ate Committee on Interstate Com
hearing at Washington since April H.
lawyers and traffic officials have testi-
fed before the committee, and they
have given the Senators a very COM
prehenSive account of railway rate
making under private or corporate
ownership, and the relation of rail-
way rates to the development of the
country. A thousand errors and
wrong impressions about the roads
which have gone uncorrected for
eIor &C
throughout the United States. which
is almost invariably disposed to be
fair and willing to present both sides,
has reflected before the public eye
the gist of the testimony which has
been brought out before the commit
tee.
"Of all the witnesses so far heard
no one made deeper impression than
did Prof Hugo Meyer, of the Univer-
sity of Chicago.
prof. Meyer showed the infiexi
bility of government made rates. Once
a government goes into the rate MAX
ing business rates have to be made
on a mileage basis, and they are no
longer flexible. They are so much
for ten miles, and ten times that for
100 miles, or if there is a tapcring
system they always operate to great
disadvantage to distant points"
Observe that the change is due ito
the facts brought out before the SEN
ate Committee"-whi shows that
the Record has been "buncoed" by the
publication of testimony of men who
went to Washington as railroad direc-
tors who were supposed to be speak
ing only as manufacturers and ship
pers. Such testimony has been pa
raded, as has the testimony from pro-
fessors in Rockefeller's Standard Oil
and Railroad College.
The Record gives away the whole
case when it says that "a few weeks
ago the whole country seemed bent
on having Congress give the Inter
State Commerce Commission power to
fix rates. What has occurred since
"a few weeks ago." Nothing except
two things: 1. The railroads have es-
tablished a press bureau which has
literally poured out stories calculated
and intended to convey the impression
that there is a change in sentiment.
There is no change except such as
this bureau and other railroad sources
nave created in a systematic way; 2.
The testimony of railroad men, not
known to be railroad officials, has
been published far and near. When
the public sift the worked-up articles
by the bureau and the biased testi-
mony they will see that the Record
is banking or what it wishes rather
than the actual situation. The dis
interested American people are us
strongly in favor of law giving the
Commission power to fix rates as they
road activity in trying to make senti-
ment has occurred since "a few weeks
ago."