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

for one found by the interstate COM
merce commission to be unreasonable.
That was not equivalent, Mr.. West
| thought, to prescribing how much
railroad should earn. In his reply
Mr.. Foraker showed that comforting
| the rate-making power on the inter-
state commerce commission does
mean that the government is to as
sumo the responsibility of determin-
ing not only what rate shall be
charged, but also how much money
railroad shall be allowed to make, be-
cause in effect this is what the United
States supreme court held in the max
imum rate case, and precisely what
Governor Cummins of Iowa recog-
nized when, in his testimony before
the senate committee, he stated that
he thought rates should be so adjust
ed as not to allow railroad to make
more than per cent on it's invest
ment. Mr.. Foraker went on to point
out what seems to him the fatal fall
lacy of the Esch-Townsend bill, or of
any similar proposal to confer rate
making power on the interstate COM
merce commission. That bill was
based, like Mr.. Vests letter, on the
|
lenge single rate as unreasonable,
have it condemned and substitute
therefor another single rate. The
senator does not believe it possible
to do any such thing. He directs at
tention to the fact that rates so over
lap each other and are so interde-
pendent that they are woven together
in web that makes it impossible to
Lott, nln N,,t hot &c 1n,r -
and change it without at the same
time changing hundreds, and perhaps
thousands, of others. BY way of IL
lustration he takes the rate for the
transportation of the products of the
cotton mills of the south to Cincinnati.
There is a commodity rate of 40 cents
from Atlanta to Cincinnati; but why
is the rate fixed at that figure? 1t
is thus fixed because of the rate on
the products of the cotton mills of
New England to Cincinnati, and the
latter rate in turn is governed by the
rate from the New England mills to
Chicago. 1t follows that if you raise
or lower the rate from Atlanta to Gin
cinnati there must be corresponding
changes on the other rates mentioned,
and these corresponding changes in
the rate on the products of New Eng
land cotton mills will extend not only
to Chicago and Cincinnati, but to
every intermediate city and point.
The senator submits that it is not
matter affecting the revenues of the
railroads alone, but matter Of the
highest Importance to the people of
Cincinnati and of every other COM
munity, that rates should be so adj
justed that the competing products
from different parts Of the country
can come into the markets of the con-
Stunning communities and there enter
into competition with each other, to
the end that thereby the consumer
may benefit by the low prices that
competition naturally brings. In other
words, no consuming community
wants railroad rates so adjusted that
one section of purveyors can bar out
another. The consumer wants the
commodities of both. Another strik-
ing illustration was furnished by the
case of New river coal. The local rate
from the New river coal field to Gin
cinnati is 95 cents a ton, but If the
coal be shipped through to Chicago
the Cincinnati portion of the through
rate is cut down to 67 cents a ton.
Mr.. Foraker tells his correspondent
that this is not an arbitrary arrange