The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-06-25
FACTS PRESENTED
ABOUT RAILROADS
CONTINUED from Second paqe)


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ways necessary to harmonious and benef-
cial cooperation. The shipper and the
carrier have unconsciously and unavoida-
lily drifted apart, possibly neither UNDER
standing nor approaching as he should
the position of the other. This situation
has become so acute that the carrier has
been brought up with rather sharp turn
by the threat that the control of the es-
sential and vital factor in the admins
tration of his business and his property Is
TO be taken from him. A blind sense of
some underlined injustice has given rise to
an apparent demand that the government,
in exercising its proper function of SUI
pervlsng the public duties of the public
carrier shall go further and direct in de-
tail some of the operations and to an ex-
tent determine the earning power Of pri-
vate property.
Esch-T ownsend Bill.
1t has been asserted that the Esch-
Townsend bill which passed the House of
Representatives at its last session would
provide only moderate remedial legisla-
ton, because 1t seeks only to grant to the
commission the power not to make rates,
but to correct an unreasonable rate, and
yet 1t is a significant fact that at the re-
cent hearings before the Senate commit
tee not a single member of the interstate
COuliIlloHiOH ilOl IL SliiEic duNo-
cate of the rate making power for the
commission has endorsed that bill Prac-
tically every witness who appeared on
that side of the question suggested grave
defects in 1t.
Is 1t moderate remedial legislation to
grant power to correct one rate, when
the same tribunal. in attempting in the
past to exercise such power, has ordered
two thousand rates reduced in one order?
Js aoda IA raTpAdia1 lapiG1qt finn
vide that when a rate has been put into
effect, that the carrier shall have no
power thereafter to change that rate to
meet change in commercial conditioner
Is 1t moderate remedial legislation to pro-
vide that a decision of seven men at
Washington shall name a rate or rates
upon any commodity or commodities be-
tween any two or more points on the 210,-
600 miles of railroad throughout the en-
tire United States, and that the rate shall
take effect upon their decision alone prior
to appeal to the courts without protection
to the carriers against loss which must
occur pending sucl appeal in case the
courts decision should be in favor of the
carrier? Has there been anything in the
history of railway regulation since the
passage of the interstate commerce act
in 1887 which calls for such drastic pro-
ceGure? Within that PERIOD according to
the interstate commerce commissions re-
port, 1t has had before 1t seven hundred
and seventy formal cases or these cases
only forty-five, or only two and one-half
per annum, have become the subject of
litigation--that is. have been contested in
the courts by the carriers OF this num-
Der not a single case of rates unreasona-
BILE In themselves has been sustained by
the courts, and in only three cases have
the courts sustained the findings of the
commission in respect to rates unjustly
discriminatory. Is this situation which
calls for such legislation as would be en-
acted by the final passage of the i1sch-
Townsend bill
That there is no necessity for such an
unwise and injurious expedient is becom
ing more and more evident. The evils
which have undoubtedly existed as a
basis for the demand have been largely
diminished and over large areas of this
country substantially If not entirely re-
moved.
This is The result of the application TO
transportation of those methods of pro-
cedure which have characterized your
commercial and industrial organization.
viz: free, frank and open discussion OF
all the questions involved.
The carriers have met the questions in
the OPEN have dealt with them in perfect
frankness and candor. | say without hes
itatlon that If abuses exist. the great ma
the facts known. and legal remedies APP
Piled. If there are questions between the
carriers and the shippers. the carriers
should invite, and tLey do invite, fun
and frank discussion with those whose in
terests are Immediately involved If such
a policy is adopted ON both sides, If a cor
dial spirit of cooperate is cultivated be-
tween those who ship and those who car
nv. the same results of friendship and fra
ternity and mutual benefit will follow be-
tween them as have followed your efforts
since 1898 in building up your useful and
successful association.
The South.
II there is one section of the country
that will be injured more than another by
placing rate making power in the hands
of a national commission, that section Is
the south. Her coal and iron develop
nents her miscellaneous manufactures
and her iobbing centers are less advanced
than those of her northern sister states.
Her ports are with one or two exceptions,
comparatively undeyeloped, and those
which are most developed are far behind
those where long accumulated wealth,
comparatively dense population and bet
fer transportation facilities have largely
concentrated the commerce of the coun-
try Governmental rate making, however
small and insignificant In the beginning
must in the enu tenu TO a laiil iisiuitN
which will retard the development OF the
less developed sections, and perpetuate
the supremacy OF those which are most
securely established.
II has been long admitted by those who
knew and II has been established by evil
dence in the recent hearings by the Sem
ate committee. that preferences between
individuals as TO special railway rates
have almost If not entirely, disappeared
The remaining charge. so far as any
charge now exists as basis for railway
rate regulation, is the alleged unjust dis
elimination between sections ana co"inu-
mites. II,
zach of the striving communities viii
he entitled to equal consideration, and the
natural drift OF the commissions decis-
ions would be towards mileage rates. and
the establishment of limited zones OF dis
4.,A...in,, from each manufacturlng or