Milford chronicle., 1905-10-20
WASHINGTON LETTER.

II is the President who is standing pat
, now, and he Is standing as hose who
: know him knew he would stand on rail-
T. way rate legislation. He had a long talk
Saturday with representative Townsend.
co-authOr of the Esch- Townsend rate
bill and after it was over Mr. Townsend
said that the bill would be introduced at
the coming session End would have the
Presidents fullest approval. Mr.. Towns
end in sp'aking of the bill said: 1--WE
had but one idea in framing it, and that
was TO remedy the defeat in the inter
State Commerce legislation, and to allow
the commission to do what it was always
intended they should do, namely. make a
decision and enforce it. The commission
did actually exercise the authority it was
supposed to have for several years till
he matter was tested in coIrt, and the
wording OF the act found 10 be defective.
The rest OF the bill as we introduced it
was merely to furnish the machinery for
expedltingfthe work of the commission.
me matter has been discussed a good
deal since the bill was first introduced |
but l have heard nothing said that
| changed my opinion of the virtues of the |
| measure. There are a good manv people ,
who say that the language used bv the
Pre- s.dent in his last message to Congress
was ambiguous and that he did not mean
what he was popularity supposed to have
meant. This is a mistake or the work
OF the people who wanted to prepare for
letting the President down easy in case
he saw fit to change his mind. But as
matter OF fact he did not want to change
his mind, and he did not want to be let
down easy. His language was plain
enough IN the first place, and if am not
much mistaken, when his message goes
to Congress this time the first, or one of
the first things, it will contain will be
paragraph on rate legislation"
Mr.. townsend was asked If the testi. :
mony before the Senate Committee on
interstate Commerce had induced him
to change his mind in any degree He
replied emphatically in the negative.
The railways" he said, "were asked to
send witnesses to the hearing, and of E
course they knew whom to send. They q
declared that it was unconstitutional to !;
confer any such power on the railways
as the bill proposed, but they were CON b
ronted by the records showing that the Il
commission had exercised just such pow p
ars IN the early years of its existence !,
Then there were a number of eminent
awyers called to show that the powers &
giVPvSeu Dy the OIL were uncOnstltu- 81
1onal. But they called on the Attorney 4
General and he assured them that the =
Dill was constitutional. They also pre-
ented a lot of theories as to what the W
dill would do ifit did become a law. But T
am satisfied that not two per cent of the 10
estImony presented by the railroads =.
onld be called evidence. 1t was simply Z
he opinion of interested parties. bt
The Secretary of Agriculture announced m
o the Cabinet meeting that he had deci. J.,
ed on scheme which would relieve the ~
department. of Agriculture of considera- OF
lie expense in connection with meat in of
pection and enable larger force of in w
peetors to be put at work. 1t was moth ~
lg less than plan to make the packers "
ay Tor the labels used in the inspection tn
nd thus relieve the department Of that fr,