Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1905-08-03
REGULATION OF RATES.
vlews OF Judge Smith as Found In
the Record Herald.

In response to an inquiry from tn,
Record Herald, of Chicago, Hon
Walter /. Smith, member of Congress.
from this district, makes a clear
statement of his opinion of the regu
lation of rates by the Inter- State. Com,
merce Commission. The article vii,
repay a perusal by every one interest
ed in such a law.
in my opinion your proposed
amendment to the Esch- Townsend bill
would not operate to effect Justice and
should not be adopted.
The n who pays the rate in law
and the one h pays it in fact are
not the same one.
If complaint should be made of the
rate on grain, and the commission
should ordera reduction of the rate and
theorder should be suspended as propos-
ed by you, If the rate fixed by the com
mission vas ultimately held to be fair,
the refund would go TO the grain deal
er who made the shipment. Even the
most suileless can see that the grain
dealer would buy upon the basis OF
the rate he was actually paying, and
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the commission. The result would be
that the refund under the proposed
law would go, not TO the farmer, who
would in fact lose it, but to the grain
dealer, who had not lost it at all. The
same difficulty would arise with refer
ence to every case where goods were
shipped by any butthe actual producer
direct to the actual consumer.
Tho YNnnn1n 80 ,,AA tlAr..aa-
sive rate would still sell his goods up
on the basis OF the rate actually paid
by him and the consumer would pay
the excessive rate which he would
never be able to recover.
Fairness requires that it be also con
coded that ii the commission rate be
put in operation and in fact is too low
the railroad company cannot in any
practical way recover the amount lost.
SO that II the excessively high rate is
extorted the person who actually pays
1T can never recover it, and if an ex-
cessively low rate is imposed the cor
poration losing 1t is actually without
remedy.
1t being perfectly manifest, there
fore, that whether we suspend the rate
or enforce 1t great injustice is to be
done, either to the railroad company
or to the person actually paying
freight, the practical question simply
is, Would 1t on the whole be better to
impose the injustice upon the com.
pany or on the freight payer?
My judgment is that it ought to be
imposed on the company, and for this
reason: The company in the first in
stance establishes it's own rate, and
this can be changed only upon u find
ing by what is presumed to be an inn
partial body that the rate is unjust,
unreasonable or excessive. This body
having so determined, and il being
perfectly clear that either TO suspend
or refuse to suspend may work a great
injustice. the simple question is,
Should w presume under all the cir
cumstances that this impartial board
is right or wrong?
III 1t is to be presumed until the
courts have determined otherwise that
the finding of the commission is cor
rect, there is less danger of injustice to
the railroads from putting the rate in
operation than there would be to the
freight payer from ~suspending It's oper-
alton. IL seems to me there is no es-
cape from this conclusion, except up
on the theory that the decision of the
commission ought not to even create
a presumption that its finding is COR
rect.
Believing this and not denying that
it may at times work an injustice to
the railroad company, think the rate
fixed by the commission ought to re-
main in force until the presumption in
favor of the correctness of its holdings
a.
of competent jurisdiction that 1t is er-
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