Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-02-10

it on at least a reasonable approach
to equality in their common market
If, therefore, the rate on the New
river coal to Chicago should be chal
lenged instantly would come up the
question, not whether that one single
rate from point to point named was
reasonable in and of itself, but
whether or not it was reasonable and
just in comparison with all the other
competing rates. There could not be
a change of that rate without a cor
responding change in all the other
rates. In other words, the theory
upon which the Esch-Townsend bill
proceeded is pronounced fallacious.
There is plenty of evidence for the
soundness of Mr.. Foraker's averment
on this point. One of the men who
appeared on behalf of the shippers
before the interstate commerce COM
mittee of the senate, which sat last
year after the close of the fifty-eight
congress, was Judge S. II. Cowan OF
Texas, who represented the Texas
Cattle Receivers association and the
Cattle Growers interstate committee.
In the course of his testimony, after
giving an account of the proceedings
he had been conducting against GER
tain railroads before the interstate
commerce commission to have a rate
condemned as unreasonable, he said,
by way of explaining why so much
time had been occup,ed-more than a
year-that the question whether the
particular rate complained of was I'M
reasonable, involved a careful exam
nation of all the rates in the state of
Texas, in southwestern Kansas, in
Colorado and in Arizona. Mr.. West is
further reminded that in the maxi
mum rate case cited by him the inter-
state commerce commission found it
necessary in order to change the par
ticular rate complained of, to change
more than 1000 rates, and one of the
chief causes for dissatisfaction with
their decision was that it did not
change many other rates so as to
make them correspond. Judge Cooley
while chairman of the interstate COM
merce commission, declared that, If
the commission were required to ex-
ercise the rate-making power, it
would in effect be compelled to act
as rate-makers for all the railroads,
and compelled to adjust their tariffs
oO do W lhSCI lhC CAi6ChSiCo vi puoi
ness, while at the same time endeav-
oring to protect the relative rights
and equities of rival carriers and rival
localities. He recognized that, in a
country so large as ours, and with so
vast a railway mileage, the task
would be superhuman. In the maxi
mum rate case, to which we have re-
ferred, the United States supreme
court said, in it's opinion reversing the
interstate commerce commission, that
there was nothing in the interstate
commerce act-nor was there, it may
be added, in the Esch-Townsend bill
requiring the commission to proceed
singly against each railway company
for each alleged violation of the act
The supreme court proceeded to point
out that the order of the commission
was in the very case at bar directed
against a score or more of companies,
and assumed to determine the maxi
mum rates on half dozen classes of
freight from Cincinnati to Chicago re-
spectively, to several specified south
ern points and the territory contigu-
Gus thereto, so that il the power ex-
listed, as it was claimed, there would
be no escape from the conclusion that
| it would be within the discretion OF
the commission, of it's own motion, to
suggest that the interstate rates on