Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-18

a Buckeye. he was taken to the then ter
ritory of Iowa when a lad of eight years.
and there received his early education as
printers devil. Later he saved enough
money to study law, and during the war
fought as Union lieutenant colonel. OF
the Senate committee on interstate COM
merce the chairman Is Stephen B. Elkins
of West Virginia, the millionaire
son-in-law Of Henry Gassaway Davis.
late running mate of Judge Alton B. Par
ker. Senator Elkins Is expected to OPP
pose the radical features devised by Rep
resentatives Esch and Townsend. His
career may be summarized as follows:
Native Of Ohio. university graduate, fed
eral soldier from Missouri, captive of
Quantrell band Of outlaws and condemned
to die, but escaped; Missouri lawyer emf
grant to New Mexico, territorial district
attorney, attorney general. federal alto
New Mexico, promoter and prospector in
West Virginia, Secretary of War under
Harrison and United States senator from
West Virginia since 1894. He Is q large
owner of railroad and coal land proper
ties, both independently and In connec-
ton with his lti-millionaire father-in-
law, who says that government rate
making would mean government owner
ship and dangerous political machine of
over a million workers. The Presidents
field marsha1s in the Senate will be Gull
lom of Illinois and Dolliver Of Iowa
The Commerce Commission.
The interstate commerce commission,
which the President desires to vest with
authority to revise rates and search the
records and books Of railroads, sits in
rented office building In street. It is
composed of three republicans and two
democrats, each receiving salary of
81 500 per year These five members sit
as court presided over by their chairman,
a republican, placed in the center. They are
seated upon bench like that of the usual
judicial tribunal, their secretary occupying
a desk below and to their right. Chair
man Martin A. Knapp was corporation
counsel of Syracuse, N. Y, when appointed
to the commission by President Harrison
in 1891. Commissioner Judson c. Clements
had been a confederate officer, lawyer.
state legislator and member of Congress
from Georgia when he received his COM
mission from President Cleveland in 1892.
Commissioner Charles A Prouty was ap-
pointed from Vermont by President Cleve-
land in 1896. After being graduated from
Dartmouth he took up astronomy, becom-
ing assistant to Prof Langley, now secre-
tary of the Smithsonian Institution. but then
director of the Allegheny observatory. Later
Mr.. Prouty taught school. studied law and
entered his state legislature. Commits
sioner Joseph w. Fifer served In the civil
war with Illinois regiment and was
several times wounded. being shot through
the right lung In one engagement. Re-
covering from his wound, he entered the
law and became governor of Illinois in
1889. Commissioner Cockrell, the remain
ing member, was senator from Missouri
for thirty years and until the Roosevelt
landslide OF last autumn. So great was
the Presidents admiration for his dis
tinguished political opponent that he placed
him upon the commission, where his salary
is greater than 1t was as senator by $500
per year. Edward A. Moseley, secretary
of the commission, Is Massachusetts
Yankee, lawyer. ex-state legislator,
thirty-second degree Mason and author
He is the leading authority of his time
upon safety appliances and systems for
railways, and in reward for his successful
efforts to have these adopted has received
the thanks of his state legislature for
distinguished services in the cause of hui
manity." The Esch-Townsend bill in
creases the membership of the insterstate
commerce commission from FIVE to seven
and their salaries to $1,000
Extremists and Moderates.
The commission was established in 1887
after prolonged congressional struggle
between the so-called western extremists
and eastern ''moderates." The result of this
struggle of twenty years ago was a COM
promise measure. giving the commission
among other powers. authority to decide
questions of unjust rate discrimination and
the reasonableness of relative rates for
long and short distances. The western
men were opposed to a commission, ana
law TO the federal courts. The eastern
men, on the other hand, opposed the west
ern scheme to prohibit pools and similar
combinations. According to the compro-
mise the westerners agreed to swallow the
commission provision II the fasteners
would accept that prohibiting pools. Looking
back, we find that the Constitution gave
Congress power to regulate commerce
among the several states" but It's franz
ers, travelling in numbering stage coaches
from their isolated communities scattered
among the thirteen states. little dreamed
of the use to which Congress would put
this right of commercial regulation a CEN
fury later. The vast network of steel now
spread over the continent was as far above
their practical expectations as trans
oceanic airship ferry is above our own.
They apparently intended this federal
power of commercial regulation as mere
check upon the state legislatures. which.
they feared, might impose customs duties
upon the products OF rival states Inter
state commerce in our sense of the term
did not then exist. Almost all business
was local, and the cost of transportation
was SO great that few producers could sell
goods beyond the boundaries of their own
states.
Birth and Tremendous Growth.
But in scarcely more than generation
great things were going to happen. An
other age was to dawn upon the new as
upon the old world In 1S25 the Erie
canal was opened from the Hudson at Al
bany to Lake Erie at Buffalo, and thus was
offered the first cheap transportation limo
TO the well-nigh inaccessible northwest.
The same year the first American railway
charter was granted by this New York Leg
islature to the Mohawk and Hudson Rail-
road Company. Two years later another
was given to the Baltimore and Ohio road
and in 1880 the West Point Foundry Com
pany put upon the South Carolina railway
<t>r Arct rf,x>~> t&x~tI - - 49,
1850 New York had railway connections
with Boston and Buffalo, and some small
beginnings had been made In nearly every