The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-03-21
|MELLEN, HIS OWN
OK GORED, FLOPS
Rate Reform Reality Looks Diff
ferent from Theory to
o Cassatt, Too. r"
Special to The Journal.

Special to The Journal.
So. Chicago, March 21.-A Washington
special to the Chicago Tribune says:
One of the strangest things in con;
nection with the fight over the railroad
rate is the way in which it has devel-
ion between people who at the outset
thought they were in perfect harmony.
Many men have come. around to
President Roosevelt S point of view
since he began his crusade and he has
received aid from unexpected quar-
ters. On the other hand there have
been many who patted him on the back
| when he announced his intention of
| regulating railroad rates, but who, hav-
! poses to put on the statute books the
view he expressed, now are bitterly as
| sailing him.
Cassatt's Change.
Originally President Cassatt of the
Pennsylvania road was opposed VIC,
lently to rate regulation. Then he soft
ened his views and announced he
would not fight the Hepburn bill. When
that bill finally was passed thru the
| house and reached the senate the Penn
sylvania railroad influence, as repre-
sented by the two, senators from that
state, was thrown bitterly against the
Hepburn measure.
Democrats, who could not have been
expected to back up the president,
helped the two western republicans to
get the Hepburn bill out of committee
and before the senate and save it
! from meeting the fate of the Philip
pine tariff, which now is hung up in
committee by combination of much
the same forces as are ranged against
the rate bill.
Mellen's Flop.
front during the whole of this extraor-
binary campaign has been that exc
cuted by Charles s. Melen, president
of the New York, New Haven & Hart
ford railroad. Mellen appeared before
the "Get Together' club Monday
night in Hartford and openly and
above board slashed the Hepburn bill
in an indiscriminate fashion.
Over at the White House people are
contemplating this outburst of Mellen
with mixture Of amazement anC
amusement. Everybody here in Wash
ington knows the history Of the Hep
burn bill and it is not worth while re-
was the old Cullom amendment re-
modelled by the Interstate commerce
commission, touched up by Senator
Dolliver, authorized by Attorney Gtn
eral Moody. further amended by Hep
burn, scrutinized in the most careful
fashion and approved, section by sec
ton and word by word, by President
| Roosevelt.
Attack on the Bill.
Under these circumstances there i
a great deal of significance in Mellen .
speech, and particularly in the follow
ing sensational paragraph:
Benedict Arnold thought of n
greater damage to the interests of thi
section thanHit is possible to caus
thru the powers granted, in this bill
anR you must consider not SO much tn
deposition of those framing it as tn
measure of the grant it cOntains.''
. Now. curious thing about it all
that this same Charles S. Mellen, pres
dent of the New York, New Haven
Hartford railroad, which has the repl
tatlOn OF being the meanest and mos
accommodating line in the Unite
States, with the possible exception O
the Boston & Maine, was the inspire
) ton for the original message of Pres
dent Roosevelt, in which he propose
the immediate passage Of law givin
: the interstate commerce commissio
) power to regulate rates.
Melen and the Message.
| The railroad president referred to
the president s message sent to COZ
} gress in. 1904 was. no less than tn
l Charles S. Mellen, president of the Ne
York, New Haven & Hartford railroa,
and it was he who furnished the tex
} for President Roosevelt to- recommen
to congress the passage of a law civ
| ing the interstate commerce eommissio
: the right to fix rates.
1 1t is no wonder the people at tt
4 White House are getting up a dead
parallel which will 90 far to Undue
v many people to believe that Presidcl
J., Mellen thought one thing when he W;
l theorizing and now thinks another thin
< when he finds his own theories abol
i to be enacted into law.