New-York tribune., 1906-05-02
A DISAPPOINTING DEBATE.

The Senate's decision TO close debate on the
railroad rate bill is thoroughly welcome. For
the last three or four weeks interest in the dis
cussion has tagged and the public has waited
wearily for the fall of the curtain. The San
Francisco disaster had much to do with turn
ing popular attention from the struggle in the
Senate over railroad rate legislation. But even
before San Francisco was stricken the conviction
had spread that the debate though at times
brilliant and cOgent, had taken too much the
form of a tilt at legal and scholastic windmilIs.
From practical point of view the discussion
now ending has been Overtechnical nebulOus and
largely futile.
The Senate from the beginning seemed to pre-
fer splitting hairs over side issues to meeting
the questions actually presented by a rate reg
uIatiOn measure. The opponents Of the Hep
burn bill attacked it's cOnstitutiOnality instead
of challenging its policy. BY that procedure
they sacrificed every advantage Of position For
If they really opposed the House bill ss
warranted and dangerous extension Of federal
power and an infringement of the property
rights of railroad corporations it was worse
than a waste OF time and energy to argue with
infinite iteration that 1t was unconstitutional.
IT, on the other hand, they conceded the prOpriety
and deSirabiliS- of rate regulation and wished
only to give the House measure the most efec-
tive form possible, II could not but be mystery
to the public why so much heat, subtlety and
pertinacity should be shown in wrangling over
details of the bill in so far it affected the
single issue Of carrying the Interstate Commerce
Commissions findings into the federal courts.
This issue has been befogged rather than
clarified by disputants in the Senate. The choice
is certainly plain one between giving the In
| terstate Commerce Commission a maximum and
a minimum of power in enforcing it's rulings. The
/ Hepburn bill seeks TO give a maximum, yet
without denying any appellant his constitutional
rights. The amenders Of the Hepburn bill want
to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the
minimum Of authority, making all it's rulings
renewable by the courts whether or not the
appellants constitutional rights are invaded.
How much actual difference there may be in
practice between these two theories no one can
determine for the courts must decide in any
case just what power the commission may exer-
else. Yet over this rather academic issue
great cloud Of dust has been raised, while the
far-reaching almost revolutionary, changes in
our economic and political system predicted by
the northumberland opponents Of regulation,
like Senator Foraker and Representative Me
CALL are dismissed as not worth talking about.
1t is easy to appreciate the anguish of an old
fashioned Jeffersonian at the betrayal Of indi-
vidualism which he thinks the Hepburn bill
sanctions It Is not so easy TO measure the
mental attitude Of legislators who accept the
principle Of the Hepburn bill and then lay such
amazing stress on a single phase in the process
by which it is to be administered. The Senate
debate has left the situation in that body as
Opaque as 1t was when the House bill was re
ported, and TO that extent it has been an intel
lectual disappointment.