New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-05-16
THE PRESIDENT AND THE RATE BILL.

THE PRESIDENT AND THE RATE BILL.
The Tribune took occasion TO say last Feb
ruary, when the Senate Committee on Inter
state Commerce rather petuIantly selected Sen
atOr Tillman. of South Carolina to report the
Hepburn Rate bill and take parliamentary
charge Of the measure, that IL certain pOlti-
clans in the Senate were planning thereby ito
put the President in a hole they. not he, would
be found eventually at the bottom of the ex-
cavation. Very recent events at Washington
have fully justified that forecast. If some
groans now heard from the depths of the
pit 1t is because certain political strategists
are paying the penalty OF their miscacuIatlOns.
In the fight for the passage Of the House Rate
bill there has been good deal of intriguing be-
hind the scenes and Interior motives as well
as surface declarations have had to be reck-
Oned with. The opposition to the House meas
ure on the Republican side of the Senate was
apparently less inspired by desire to emascu-
late the bill for the Senate has recently added
drastic provisions of various sorts which the
House laid aside tending TO complicate the
main issue) than IL was-for time at least
by a purpose to extOrt some technical cOnces-
sions on court review which might be con-
strued as a reverse for the House and the
President. The Democratic managers, jump.
ing at the chance TO make what capital they
could through a temporary transferrence Of
leadership to the minority, were eager to ac-
centuate the differences between Republicans
and to have a recognizable hand in framing
the legislation which should ultimately pass the
Senate
In dealing with this situation the President,
as his letter to Senator Allison proves, has adj
hered steadfastly and successfully to a single
well defined policy. He wanted to see the Hep
burn bill passed as II stood, so far as the
court review feature was concerned or amend
ed in conformity with the theory of review held
by the trainers Of the House measure. He was
perfectly willing to have an implication
verted into declaration. The Tribune has al
ways held that unless the sO-called "broad re-
viewers" really wanted to turn the courts into
interstate commerce commissions of a superior
class. reviewing the routine work Of rate max
ing well as intervening to protect the con-
stitutiOnal rights of appellants, their quarrel
with the Hepburn bill one chiefly over
forms and phrases. Yet so much dust was
raised by this dispute that the public was at
first mised into thinking it involved princi-
pie of paramount Importance.
President Roosevelt has been ready to ap-
prove any amendments carrying out the inten-
lions of the Hepburn bill. whether such amend
ments were offered by Republicans or Demo-
Gratis. The Senate put a Democrat in charge
of the rate measure and there was no impro-
priety political or other, in the Presidents con-
publican Senators. But because he conferred
through Intermediates with Senators Tillman
and Bailey, it is absurd for those two leaders
TO claim that such action committed him ire
trievaby to propositions they were willing to
support. but on which they were never able to
unite the minority. The negotiations in which
they figured never reached head Mr. Bailey's
anti-injunctiOn project was dscredited in a
Democratic caucus and could not have COM
manded a majority in the Senate Practically
all the results aimed at by friends of the Hep
burn bill were subsequently insured through
the preparation of the Allison CullOm amend
ments. which could command majority, and
the President was in no way debarred from
indOrsing those amendments by the fact that
other suggestions less available had previously |
been brought to his attention by either Repub- |
licans or Democrats
Mr.. Bailey and Mr.. Timan would have shown !
more wisdom if they had accepted their fail !
ure and had not exhibited their soreness in /
public. 1t is Of little consequence that they |
could not unite the opposition and enable it to !
play more considerable role in framing the
Senate's rate measure. 1t is of much more !
consequence that the Presidents policy. an
proved by a vast majority of the voters, has
been carried into effect and that the Senate has /
wisely adopted a court review provision which, /
in the opinion of Attorney General Moody Sec |
rotary Root and Secretary Taft neither dimin- |
lshes nor enlarges the scope of court review i
contemplated by the original House measure