New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-10
CREATES SENSATION.
Presidents DenUer- Speech Stirs Up
Rmgr0ay Interests.
rTRoM THE tribune RUnEAu.l

Washington, May 0-The Presidents speech
in Denver created a sensation among the rail-
road men attending the international congress
to-day With the President away and with
almost continuous arguments against compre-
hensive railway legislation being presented to
the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce.
the opinion has gradually gained ground that
the next Congress would attempt little more in
this direction than amplifcation of the anti
rebate law, with such additional provisions as
would render Illegal rebates in whatever form
they We're granted This idea received consider
able impetus from Secretary Morton's speech,
who in his remarks at the opening of the railway
exhibit declared himself opposed to all form
of discrimination as between individuals. and
expressed the opinion that Congress should 50
amend the law as to eliminate all forms of re-
bates, including the private car, terminal, ele-
vator and other devices. There was nothing
in the Secretary's statement which did not re-
ceive the cordial support of large majority of
the railroad men, they regard the rebate. in
whatever form they are compelled to grant it,
as an unmixed evil which materially diminishes
the profits Of the railways.
This gradually increasing complacency re-
garding the railway policy of the administra-
ton received a rude shock, however, when the
reports of the Presidents Denver speech reached
Washington. His declarations that the rail-
need to take into account in dealing with the
question of commerce; that ''in my Judgment
it is absolutely necessary that the naton-for
the State cannot possibly do it-should as
sumo supervisory and regulatory function
over the great corporations which practical
" control the great highways of commerce..
together with his reiteration OF his opinion that
power to fix rates should be conferred on the
Interstate Commerce Commission proved most
unwelcome news to many of the great railway
managers although there are some few wise
enough to appreciate that, drastic as the rem
edy proposed by the President may seem, ii is
the only antidote for the constantly increasing
demand that the government assume entire con-
troll of the railways
The concrete statement that the railways
highways the implied proposition that they
are merely public highways, the control of
which is within limits conferred on the rail
way corporations is so opposed to the general
assumption of railway men that the railroads
of the country are vested rights, private prop
perty, to be administered by directors and
managers as to yield the largest possible profits
to the stockholders that some railway men went
so far to-day as to declare that the Presidents
propositions were revolutionary and only a few
could be found who did not take emphatic issue
with him. The report has been current in Wash
ington for some time that the Senate Committee
on Interstate Commerce has agreed on a pro-
gramme which provides only for such amend
ment of the existing law would prove agree
able to the railroads, and 1t has even been
printed that the President has agreed to this
plan-with how little warrant is demonstrated
by to-day's dispatches from Denver
The tenacity with which the President adj
heres to his original views, while wholly char
acteristic, appears to have occasoned great
surprise among the railway men in Washington,
and it is freely predicted that he will have the
fight of his life on his hands when he tries
to this form of legislation by the next
Congress.