The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1906-04-27
THE ISSUE IS NOT NEW.

THE ISSUE IS NOT NEW.
The quarreling among politicians as
to the authorship Of the rate issue be-
trays a lamentable taste and a no less
lamentable ignorance of history. The
rate issue is not new. 1t was up in
| the senate thirty-two years ago when
a committee of which Senator Win
doom, of Minnesota, was chairman, re-
ported: I'm the matter of taxation
there are four men representing the
four great trunk lines between Chicago
and New York who possess and not
infrequently exercise powers which the
congress Of the United States would
not venture to exert. They may at
any time for any reasons satisfactory
to themselves, by single stroke of
the pen, reduce the value Of property
lions of dollars. An additional charge
of 5 cents bushel upon the transpor-
tation of cereals would have been
equivalent to a tax of $45,000,O0O on
the crop of 1873. No congress would
dare to exercise so vast a power ex-
cept upon a necessity of the most i'm
perative nature, yet these gentlement
exercise it whenever it suits their SUI
preme will and pleasure, without ex-
PLANTATION or apologw."
The committee went on to say that
the day was not distant when it would
be the duty of statesmen to inquire
whether it was less dangerous to leave
this vast power in private and none
too scrupulous hands, or Ito add some
what to the power and patronage of
government responsible to the people
and entirely under their control"
The not distant day came in 1887,
when congress passed the interstate
commerce act creating a commission
which was expected to keep watch
over the railroads and see that they
charged only reasonable rates, that
they refrained from determinations
between persons and localities, aban-
doned rebates, and that they gave up
the vicious practice of suddenly rails
ing or lowering rates by the means
now known as the midnight schedule"
The commission was authorized to is
sue orders to the railroads and to take
them into court when they disobeyed.
Up to 1897 the commission had con-
siderable control of the situation, but
in that year lost all in a decision of
the supreme court that congress had
not expressly conferred upon the COM
mission the authority to prescribe a
reasonable rate.
This is the history of the railroad
that congress was alive to the serious
character Of the situation a generation
o6o IhoI IL was Iio
with regard to its power to regulate
railroads. It was only a question of
whether it would not be better to give
the railroads a chance to so amend
their manners as to make government
interference unnecessary.
But the railroad magnates never re-
formed. They never intended to re-
form, and it became evident that either
congress must regulate the railroads
o the railroads would regulate the peo-
pie. This is really the only question
before the senate today. The fight for
judicial review has been falsely rep
resented by the railroads as their fight
against canfiscation. There is conf1s-
cation involved, but it is not the con-
fiscation of the railroads 1t is the
confiscation of the law that is intend
ed. Unlimited judicial review is mere
ly killing the interstate commerce
commission by inches instead of by
abolishing it. 1t is the difference be-
tween opening patients veins and
blowing out his brains. Dissolution
will result in either case