The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-11-08
ADVERTISE FOR TICKETS.
Official Declares 1t Legal to Exchange
Predicts Revision of Ruling.


Subsequent to the interstate com
merce commissions interpreting the
new law in regard to reciprocal adver-
Using to mean that nothing but money
can be received for advertising, a well
known railroad official gives out the
following statement:
The railroads manufacture one com
modify, transportation. and it has a
value which can be exchanged for
money or its equivalent the same as
any other commodity. No government.
no law, can declare that a commodity
is not the equivalent of actual one
withou inviting ridicule Upon itself.
Personal services OF commodities are
exchanged between two parties for an
amour represented in money. The
entire manufacture and of
the United States, the credit between
seller and buyer. is represented by a
money value, not by an actual one
exchange. A tyrO in political economy
knows ALI this. No law can prevent a
maintaining lots. The railroads on
staptly trade land with farmers in
eliminating curvature in right Of way.
Many a busheI of potatoes or apples
has been exchanged for a country
newspaper subscription. h large city
newspapers at terminals viii only take
cash for advertising. Their position is
totally different from the country
ne. spaper. They do not care to trade
with the railroads in exchange for
transportation, because they would
have more tina they needed.
On h other hand, the railroads
could not afford to pay the thousands
of country papers in cash, nor could
h country papers afford to pay fare
to collect Information from nearby
towns and report that John Brown has
painted his barn. This is an insig-
nihcant item to a city man with a
swelled head. He cannot see our wide
" extended country as a whole; he
only sees it in part; but the business
man knows that that little statement
induced John Smith in the next town
10 paint his barn, and so created n de-
m3nd for paint, and it Is the internal
enterprise Of the county which is being
stirred up by the country editor that
helps to make the big cities and even
the large newspapers IN the Dig clties
prosperous. Everything pertaining
to industrial development and enter
prise is interdependent-
The railroads have always trade
with the country papers transportation
for advertising, and they will continue
to do SO as long as the two parties can
agree to accept each others product
in trade-an amount represented by Il
mGncy value, II not by actual money.
Actual money need not pass in any
trade, and nc specific law Will ever
hold that would destroy the power of
exchange between two specific COM
modities, because besides being special
legislation it would be fundamentally
against reaS9l- y government mas the
right to regulate commerce and to in
dictate that service shall be returned
for service, but it cannot say that
actual money shall pass between the
parties from both sides Of a transac-
ton. Goods represent money, and
transportation and advertising space
are commodities.
Referring TO this same subject, a
passenger official says:
If the ruling of the commission re-
mains unchanged the larger systems OF
roads and perhaps others viii make no
contracts to exchange transportation
for advertising. not even for travelling
within state limits where the commits
sion has no Jurisdiction. They viii take
this position rather than take chances
of being accused of giving such trans
p~ortation for the different states
through which their lines pass, in order
to enable the holder to nah an inter
state journey. 1t might be construed
as an evasion of the law, though 1
am not so sure that this would be sound
or equivalent to a violation
In my opinion. however. such a ire
pressure viii be brought to
bear upon the commission that they will
be compelled to reverse themselves by
finding they were in error, and for this
reason. Their action was voluntary and
arbitrary, and, I am told. without first
sui the attorney general o. the
United states. If they had done SO or
his opinion is hereafter o~btained,he viii,
in my udgment tell the commission
tina their ruling is not good law, not
w-ithstanding the fact that nearly every
member of that body is a lawyer. He
will also. I believe. say that the trainers
of the law never contemplated anything
so absurd and drastic: that the law re-
quires not an exchange in kind, other
wise cash. as the commission has held,
but an exchange of equal value, and
that is exactly what the giving of
transportation for advertising amount
to.
In other words. We could not lawfully.
IN balancing accounts. name a lower