The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1905-05-15
BEARING BEFORE INTERSTATE
COMMERCE COMMISSION
MEANS GREAT DEAL.
When Work Is Once Performed Law
makers Will Take Up Problem to
Be Solved.

WASHINGTON, May 15.-It is very
doubtful if, for the average citizen,
the hearings before the senate inter-
state commerce commission will mean
a great deal. Much testimony, all of 1t
necessarily ex parte, is being taken, and
its mass tends to popular confusion.
But the work is important. Later on,
by the time congress is ready to pro-
coed to serious consideration of the
transportation problem, this testimony
will be carefully assorted and arrang-
ed, with some view to systematic clas-
safication. Not until this work has
been performed, will the lawmakers
themselves know precisely what the
hearings have offered towards a solu-
ton of the problem. 1t is not strange,
therefore, that the average man will
get little comfort from the hearings.
Before congress adjourned, March 4,
there were protracted hearings before
committees of both houses as to the
merits of the Esch-Townsend bill, the
stevens private car bill, and all the
other bills aimed at better control of
railways and rates. The hearings were
similar to those now in progress, and
the testimony they brought out will be
compiled with the testimony now be-
ing taken. This testimony, now being
published, will make a dozen or more
large octave volumes.
The work of compiling, asserting and
digging out the salient points decel-
,oped in these hearings will be done by
experts employees of congress who
nave had much experience in such mat
ters-and it will ented over two or
three months. An elaborate alphabet
ical index will be one of the convent
ences. Without such helps congress
would not know what the hearings
have done in supporting or opposing
Ghe arguments back of the agitation.
It need not be expected that the
hearings for the present, will throw
much light on what congress will I'LL
,timately do. The congressional pro-
gram will depend upon the presidents
message, the state of public sentiment
and the facts which the hearings will
develop.
So far as there president is concern
ed, there has been no change of pur-
pose, if his San Antonio speech ana
his Denver speech may be taken as an
index to his policy. Unless he would
undergo a change of front therefore,
it may be expected that his message
converting congress in extraordinary
session in October, will repeat sub
stantially his recommendations of last
December.
Public sentiment, however, is not
quite holding itself up to the presi-
dents level of thought. 1t has sagged
perceptibly in many places, noticeably
in the middle west, where the Esch-
Townsend bill originally had the
strongest support. Many men who,
last winter, We're with the president, in
favor of giving the interstate COM
,merce commission the power to fix
rates, subject to appeal to the courts,
a1a no
Townsend bill did not go farther than
the house of representatives. These
men still demand relief from oppres-
sion by the great transportation COM
panies, but the yare beginning to ask
themselves whether this relief can be
secured through federal control of the
rate making power. Some are coming
to believe that for the present the gov
eminent should not undertake to con-
1rol rates, but should address itself to
the regulation of private car lines, the
midnight tariff and to terminal
switching and elevator charges, argu-
ing that through such a policy rebates
and rate inequalities can be met more
satisfactory than through such a pol
icy as drastic as that which the Esch-
Townsend bill proposes.
The hearing will throw a flood of
light on the entire question, and next
winter congress win be much more
sure Of its ground than during the ses-
sion which closed in March. When that
session adjourned the country had no
data upon which to predicate legisIa-
Uion that would afford the needed re-
lief and at the same time do no injus-
fice to the railroads.
Almost without warning, the coun-
try and congress were asked to pass
Judgment on the highly specialized
question of railroad operation and con.
troll. Neither the country nor congress
had sufficient exact information to
warrant definite opinion, much less
any attempt to express that opinion in
the form of a statute. When the house
OF representatives, always conservative