The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-02-28
lNOPPOSITION.
Senator Foraker Opens Fight
Against Rate Bill.
Declares the Elkins Law Meets
All Requirements.
RELIANCE ON COURTS.
Proposed Law ImpracticabIe
and Unconstitutional.
Finds Many Other Objections to
Its Ena ctment.

Washington, Feb. 28.-After the con-
clusion of the routine business in the
senate today Mr.. Foraker took the floor
to deliver his promised speech on the
railroad rate question. The announce
ment that he was to speak had the ef-
feet of filling the galleries and there
was also a large attendance of senators.
| Notwithstanding the senator departed
from his custom of extemporaneous
speaking and read from manuscript, he
| received careful attention.
Mr. Foraker conceded that some evils
exist IN connection with the railroads
but urged that all of them could be
more effectively met by amending the
Eil1ins law than by passing the pending
bill. He announced his regret at differ
! ing from the president, but said he could
not see his way clear to pursue any
/ other course. He gave a general review
OF the history OF the railroad develop
ment Of the country and passed to the
1 evils of the system, which he said are
necessarily incident to the upbuilding of
4 so vast an interest. His attitude toward
the pending railroad rate bill was cor
rectly outlined in his first paragraph,
in which he said of the bill: 1T is so
4 contrary to the spirit of our institutions
and of such drastic and revolutionary
I character that If not in its immediate
4 effect, at least as a precedent, the con-
I sequences are likely to be most unusual
and far-reaching."
three classes, excessive rates, rebates
1 and Determinations.
He found little to complain of under
] the first heading, but said there are
some instances of charges that are too
1 high, and he thought prompt and
4 effective remedy should be provided.
The Rebate Evil.
A more serious evil he found in re-
4 bates and he traced the present exten-
sive railroad consultations to the fact
inst
4 pooling had left the roads without pro-
/ lection from the rebate system except
4 to resort to some general understanding.
/ Referring to the Elkins law, he said:
There has been no serious attempt
/ to enforce this law to prevent discrimi-
4 nations as to localities, but q glance at
/ its provisions will suffice to show that
/ it IS as broad, direct, explicit and eff
+ cient to remedy that kind of an evil,
/ wherever it may exist, as it has been
found to be as to personal diScrimina-
j tions. That the law has not been tested
/ in this respect is not due to any fault
/ of the law, but because no one has seen
I fit to invoke it
THE fault" he added, ''is not with
/ the existing law but with the officials
( who have not enforced it,
Announcing his own position, he
said
"I believe in the court plan, as con-
/ tradiStinguished from the rate making
plan, not alone because it is much sim
more efficient, and without expense to
the shipper, but because in addition to
all that it avoids all legal and consti-
4 futiOnal questions, while the rate max
ing plan as set forth in this bill en-
/ counters a number of such questions
/ that are of the most serious character
and some Of them, in my judgment,
/ fatal"
Right to Make Rates.
Regarding the right of congress to
make rates, he declared 1.-The supreme
court has never yet passed on that
( question and there are many eminent
/ lawyers who are of the opinion that
the court viii hold, when it does decide
( that question, that congress does not
1 have that power.
"Their reasoning" he said. seems to
me to be sound and the effect of it
absolutely fatal to this entire scheme
/ of legislation"
He was confirmed in this view, he
said, by the opinion of the court In the
! Northern Securities case. He believed
that a remark made in reaching the
conclusion in that case leaves the ques-
ton open. He conceded that the diff
ferent states have the power of rate
fixing. But" he said, the cases are
wholly different"
'sNEanifestly it is utterly impossible
for congress by statute to fix all the
rates for interstate commerce. 1t must
resort to some plan under which it can
avail itself Of the help of some kind of
I board, commission tribunal or agency.
But when it undertakes to do this it
I must take heed lest It undertake to do
it in such a way as to delegate legisla-
tive authority, and thus make its ef-
+ fort unconstitutional and unavailing,
for it will be conceded that it is uncon-
stitutional for congress to delegate
He pointed out the departure in en-
4 DoWering the interstate commerce
4 commission to decide what shall be
reasonable rates, saying
ffT4 ion Of lTTT- f1-
tuition to confer Judicial powers upon
the legislative department or to con-
/ fer legislative powers upon the judicial
i department, or to confer either or
1 these powers upon the executive de-
partment-'
Rule of the Courts.
He laid down the rule of the courts
+ to be whether or not the party on
whom the authority is conferred is
4 intrusted with any discretion to make
the law; if so the statute IS uneonsti-
tutfonal. Discretion may be allowed
as to its execution. but none as to what
the law shall be-
sIt is true that the supreme court
has upheld statutes enacted by the
states comforting this power on state
commissions or commissioners, and
that the supreme court did indulge In
the maximum rate case, and perhaps
in other cases. in the characte Of ex-
pressions referred to, but it is also true
that IN precise 4ueSttDl4 new BAGSCtAt-
ed was not presented to the court in
any of these cases. And it is also true
that the supreme court Of the United
states has never yet upheld a state
statute conferring power to make
rates on a railroad commission or
commissioner as to that particular
point which did not make the power
so conferred purely administrative in
character, or which was not enacted
by virtue of a constitutional provision
- y 4nc al ffF7
The senator quoted a number Of de-