The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-13

 TO BE HEARD Invitation to Coal Road
 Presidents. THEY WILL NOT BE sUBPoENAED Appearance Before Committee Must
 Be Voluntary. Inquiry Into the Relation of the Car riers and the Producers of Coal
 and oil is Resumed at
 Philadelphia.
THEY WILL NOT BE sUBPoENAED

Philadelphia, June 12.--The presidents of the big coal carrying railroads will be given an opportunity to appear be- fore the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion and make any statement they may desire.
 Commissioner cockrelI said today that invitations were to be extended to the presidents of the Pennsylvania, Bali timore and Ohio. the Norfolk and West ern, the Chesapeake and Ohio and the New York Central railroads. to appear before the Commission No subponaes will be issued for the heads of these roads and their appearance will be en- tirely optional with the officials.
 The Commission resumed its inquiry today into the relations of the rail- roads to the coal and oil interests. The first witness was Robert L. Franklin, Assistant Freight Claim Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. who detailed the method of Investigating claims made by coal companies for coal lost in transit.
 MT. Franklin was asked to furnish the Commission with actual claims. He was excused In order to procure the claims.
 The Beerwind-w White Coal Company and the much-discussed Harsimus Pier in New York harbor. came up again when R. F. Cochran. Superintendent of the pier, was called.
 The Berwind-White Company, 1t had been testified by previous witnesses, has the exclusive use of tho Harsimus Pier, which was built by the Pennsyl- vania Railroad and paid for by the coal company. The. most important feature of MT. Cochran's testimony was his statement that the Pennsylvania Railroad operates all the cars on Har- sinus Pier, both those belonging to the railroad and tho coal company cars. The railroads locomotives are used and railroad employees operate the locomo- tives. Berwind White employees are pro- hiblted from handling the cars. It is evidence before the Commission that the Berwind-white Company is allow ed cents ton by the railroad for per- forming this work.
 Work Done By Railroad.
 Probably the most important facs brought out was that the coal com pany was allowed seven cents a tor by the railroad company for handling It's cars on the Harsimus pied. This all lowance gives the coal company about $17,000 month for this service. The work is performed. however, by the Pennsylvania Railroad crews with rail- road locomotives for which the coal company makes monthly settlements with the railroad, the amount of the monthly bill being something over S700
 Charles Heebener. counsel for the DcTWlf1o- W nite SoinpdHys dfOhSSd Ntio ire of the commissioners when he told them that coal loaded into the bunkers of steamships was paid for by estf- mated weight and that there was no way of determing the quantity of coal that remained in a barge when the steamship did not take the entire load. Commissioner Cockrell suggested that counsel was evasive which MT. Hee- bener indignantly denied.
 We have nothing to evade," he de- clared, but I don't know how you are going to find out what you are trying to learn because we have no way of knowing it ourselves"
 Well, we will stagger along the best we can" was Commissioner Clements's comment
 It developed through the testimony of Frederick Mackowan, treasurer os the company that during a period when cars were scarce. E. J. Berwind made arrangements with the Pennsylvania Railroad by which his company secured 900 cars several hundred of which had been in the service of the railroad.