The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-07-03
PENNSY NOT SO
 BAD AS PAINTED Company Wants to Correct
 Any Abuses DISCRIMINATION IS RARE Twenty-one Out of 123,ooo Employees Testified That They Had Used
 Their Positions for Grart.

Philadelphia, July "A preliminary re- port of the special committee of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania railroad commission recently appointed to investigate the alleged discrimination in the distribution of coal cars as reveal cd at the hearings of the interstate com mission. was submitted today to the full board of the company. After a short dis cussion the report was unanimously ap- proved.
 The committee says that the testimony showed "that of more than 300 operators of bituminous coal mines situated on the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad com pany, less than ten operators in all have testified that they believed themselves to have been unfairly discriminated against, either in the distribution of coal cars or in the matter of sidings connect ing mine workings with the railroad line.
 Twenty-one Out of f23,000.
 "Fifty-one of the more than 123,OOO off cers and employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad company" the company says 'were examined before the Interstate commerce commission and of those wit nesses twenty-one were shown to have acquired interests in various ways in coal companies or properties. These are alleged but not proven to have received undue and unreasonable preferences in the distribution of coal cars or In the construction of sidings. The testimony of the witnesses examined before the com mittee does not prove that there have been in fact any undue or unreasonable preferences, either in the distribution of coal cars or in the construction of sid ings."
 The committee says it has received re- plies from all officers and employees hav- ing charge of the distribution of cars to inquiries made by the committee on car distribution, but until the company S records of the daily movement of cars can be examined, the committee will be unable to knew whether the distribu- tion of cars varied from the rules gov erning the same Because of the magni- tude of the task of tabulating, examin- ing and comparing many thousand re- ports, the committee has employed the Audit company of New York to undertake an expert investigation of the company s daily reports and other record of car distribution.
 The committee calls attention to many difficulties encountered In the distribu- tion of cars. The committee says:
 Fair System of Pro Rata.
 ssThere must be a fair system of pro rata distribution but whatever be the sys- tenn, there will inevitably come periods when the demand for cars will exceed the supply, because of increased market prices, sometimes caused by weather sometimes by strikes in other territories or sometimes by suddenly increased in dustrial development
 '.The question of the independent or privately owned coal cars is not a new question, nor one which admits of an offhand solution The greater portion of the coal tonnage of England Is moved to- day in privately owned cars. The use of such cars on the Pennsylvania lines is not peculiar to a few favored shippers They have been used from the beginning of the coal transportation"
 The report concludes as follows:
 Willing to Look Further.
 'sThe COT imittee will investigate every fact which is, or may be. brought to its attention affecting the performance by any officer or employe of his duty to the company, or the performance by the company of It's duties to the public; and the committee will report its conclusions in every case to the president of the company in the confident assurance that no ownership or practice calculated in any way to affect the full and impartial discharges of duties owed by the re- spective officers and employees to the company or by the company to the pub lic will be condoned; and that every officer or employe after full investigation has been or shall be found to have failed in the performance of his duty, will be properly dealt with.
 "While under former conditions it was right that officers and employees should have been encouraged to invest their own money in or to personally assume financial obligations for the purpose of developing personal enterprises on the line of the road for the practical return. that if officers and employees did not so invest, 1t would have been difficult to in- duce other people to make such invest ments: it nevertheless has been always understood that no such investment of money or assumption of financial obli- gation was permissible if it affected the officers or employees performance of such