The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-02

stead of a public friend. This Is said in no spirit of criticism or compla int l am free to say the carriers have not
 been free from fault. For the last seven years in the effort to handle the
 traffic produced by the increased ac- tivlty of the South. the carrying fa-
 cilities of every railway system in
 the South have been taxed at least up to, If not beyond. it's physical capacity.
 Under thtse conditions, every railway officer has necessarily had his attcn-
 ton absorbingly directed to the one
 purpose of fulfilling as best he could with the facilities at hand the trans
 portation duties imposed upon him.
 The delays and damages and other burdens growing out Of these condl- tions have been so harassing that these officers have not been able to cultivate that spirit of business intercourse with
 their patrons which is always neces- sary to harmonious and beneficial CO
 operation. The shipper and the car uer have unconsciously and unavolda-
 bly drlfted apart, possibly neither nn- derstanding nor appreciating ds he should the position of the other. This situation has become so acute that the carrier has been brought up with rather a sharp turn by the threat that the control of the essential and vital
 
 business and his property is to be taken from him. A blind sense of some undefned injustice has given rise to an apparent demand that tho gov ernmcnt, in exercising it's proper func- tion of supervising the public duties of the public carrier, shall go further and direct in detail some of the oper- ations and to an etXent determine the earning power of private property
 tod hn h Townsend bill which passed the House of Representatives at its last session would provide only moderate remedial leeislation, because Il seeks only to grant the commission the power not to make rates but to correct an un~ reasonable rate, and yet it is signit- icant fact that at the recent hearings before the Senate committee not sin gle member of the Interstate Com merce Commission nor a single advo- cate of the rate. making power for the commission mas endorsed that blli. Practically every witness who ap-
 pcared on that side of the question suggested grave defecIs in It. Is II moderate remidial Legislation to grant n power to- correct one rate, when the same tribunal, in attempting fin the past to exercise such power. mas or- dcred two thousand rates reduced in one order Is #ll lnDdrrdl" IfHltuldl lcgislation to provide that when a rate has been put into effect, that the car
 rier shall have no power thereafter to change that rate to meet change in commercial conditions? Is il mod
 crate remedial legislation to provide that a decision of seven men at Wash fnpton shall name d rate or rates upon any commodity or commodities hc- two any two or more points of the 910 oG0 miles of railroad throughout tnn entire United States, and that the
 rate shall take effect upon their de-
 cision alone prior to appeal to the courts without protection to the car riers against loss which must occur rcndlng such appeal In case the courts decision should be in favor of the car riero Has there been anything in the history of railway regulation since the massage of the Interstate Commerce Cornmissfon act in 1887 which calls for such drastic procedure? Within that period. according to the Interstate Commerce Commissions report, 1t has had before 1t seven hundred and sev- enty formal eases. Of these cases only ! fortv-fve. or only two and one half per annum, have become the subject 1 of litfpation-that is, have been con tested in the courts by the carriers. 1 Of this number not single raeo of rates unreasonable 1 in themselves has been sustained bS the courts. and in only three cases have | the courts sustained the findings o1 The commission in respect to rates un' Justly discriminatory. Is this situa'