The daily sentinel., 1907-11-07
IT'S WORK
GIGANTIC
1000 CASES ARE
Before the Inter-
state Commerce Conn
mission---No Other
Department of Cow
ernment So Swamped
With Work---Wants
Relief.
Especial to Tho Seminal, (,

NSpechI 10 Inc Sont1n4I.l
= Washington, Nov. Tn the .
: whole vast army of government =
= officials and employees there Is .
= ho other body of men who have =
+ been burdened with a task of .
+ such magnitude as that i'm =
= posed on the Interstate Com Z
= merce Commission. .
+ Something of the proportions =
+ OF this task are beginning to =
Z become clearly perceptible. =
+ There Is no question that con- =
: gress had but faint gllmmer =
= of what 1t was really doing 4
+ when in the first session of the =
r Fifty-ninth congress 1t added =
= largely to the scope of the in Z
+ terstate commerce laws and =
+ gave the commission authority .
+ over the rates and practices and =
+ accounts of quarter of a mil =
= lion miles of railroad lines, rep =
: resenting a valuation of $16.- =
= 100000. 81 .
= + $50 $+$%%
1t was even solemnly debated
whether the seven men intrusted
with the general supervision of the
railroads or the country should be
paid as much as $4,000 a year.
Wise men were not wanting who
were permeated with the idea that
the commissioners would hardly
have enough to do to earn their sal
aries.
Something more than a year has
passed since the Hepburn law went
into effect, giving the Interstate Com
merce Commission such power over
rates. practices and accounts of rail-
roads ~as the administration advo-
Gated as Immediately necessary. In
that time 1t has been demonstrated
clearly that the machinery which
congress provided for. carrying out
tho interytnte commerce laws Is SER
iously inadequate. The commission
has added large numbers OF employees
to its force. and much has been done
In bettering the organization that ex-
listed prior to the Hepburn law enact
ment. But 1t has become clear that
IL the commission is to take caro-
of the enormous amount of business
saddled upon 1t its organization will
have to be enlarged still further.
Since the Hepburn. law went into
effect about 1000 complaints, for
NAL and informal, including demands
for reparation. have beer entered. OF
course, many of these are of minor
nature or of the sort that can be
easily adjusted. 1t is fair to the
commission to say that large num-
bers of complaints are made which
are settled merely by correspondence
to the satisfaction both OF the ship
per and the railroad involved. The
friends OF the commission point out
that one of its greatest spheres OF
usefulness Is In the adjustment of
complaints of this sort and that It
Is unfair to the Commission to Judge
1t by what It does In relation to those
complaints wherein formal hearings
are held.
There are about 260 complaints
pending before the commission, most
of them important cases. on which
formal hearings will have to be held.
If the commission had nothing else
to do but to hear and decide thess
important complaints that require
formal hearings 1t would be kept ex-
tremely busy. AS 1t Is. the commits
sioners are buried III work. Some
of them begin work at o'clock in
the morning. and it . is not at all
uncommon for them to work until
1890 or IL at night. Complaints
of rebates and Determinations re-
quire constant vigilance and investi-
CATION. The safety appliance feat
ures of the Interstate commerce laws
are important. With 100000 persons
killed or wounded by the railroads
in year. the question of train con-
troll and accident prevention be-
comes n large one. Then. too. there
is tho supervision of railroad ac-
counts in all their ramifications.
Not many things about the sub
ject of, government control of rail-
roads have been made clear; but 1t
is certainty that II the government
is to control the roads 1t Will have to
build its controlling machinery on
a great deal larger scale. The ap-
preparation for the Interstate Com
merce Commission for the current
fiscal year Is 100000.