The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-06-04
STATE FILES ANSWERS IN
 RAILROAD INJUNCTION SUITS

NASHVILLE ndiifodo company, the Cen-
 tral of Georgia Railway Company, the Atlantic Coast Line. the Alabama Great Southern Railway Company, the South and North Railroad Company and the Western Railway of Alabama.
 Counsel for the Commission was granted fifteen days more in which it might answer the complaints of the Southern Railway Company. the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company, the Sea- board Air Line, the Atlanta, Birming- ham and Atlantic Railroad Company, the Nashville. Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad Company. and the Kan sas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad Company Judge Thomas G. Jones. under the | rules of the Court. granted the com plainants thirty days to file excep- tions to the bills. and thirty days addi- l tional to make replications.
 The counsel for the Commission com- prised Hon. Alex M, Garber. Attorney | General of the State; Judge Samuel D. | Weakley of Birmingham, Horace | Stringfellow of Montgomery. H. C.. l Selheimer Of Birmingham, Captain
 Frank sI White of Birmingham, and
 Judge Robert W. Walker.
 The bills, which .were voluminous. | while differing in detailed responses to the complaints, were similar in essen | tials, and with the exception of the am swers to a few subordinate sections were total denials of the allegations
 made by the complainants.
 l The important features were the all | legation that the claims of the rail- l way companies that the rate laws, if | made effective. would be practically 1 confiscatory. were entirely erroneous.
 The Commission denied that the rates l which the companies have charged are 1 reasonable and that the proposed rates | would be unfair; and denied, too, that I the rsilroad companies had expended 1 more than they had received in reve- nues.
 The figures presented in the com-
 plaints, the Commission contended. had
 been arbitrarily made and not calcu-
 lated upon a reasonable basis.
 In regard to the passenger rate law | it was declared by the Commission | that increased passenger traffic and the | savings made from the discontinuance I of issuance of free transportation | would equal, If not exceed, the losses
 resultant from the reduction of the
 passenger rate to two and half cents
 a mile.
 It was denied, too, that intra-state
 earnings were so expensively acquired
 as had been contended by the com | plainants.
 In immediate effect the result of the | bills filed yesterday is a postponement
 of the actual trial of the litigation un- l til after the expiration of sixty days. Laws That Are Affected. The bills led yesterday are the Com missions response to the complaint of the railway companies which prayed A | permanent injunction to restrain the
 kallroad Commission from putting into | erect the maximum rate law, the "11O
 articles" law. the 21-2 cent passen- ger rate law. the reciprocal demurraye | law. and the law which practically | outlaws any foreign corporation that
 takes its litigation into a Federal | court. They are the five big railway 1 regulation laws passed by the Legis- lature in its recent session.
 The xamimum rate law names as maximum freight rates chargeable by railway companies in Alabama the | rates effective on January 1, 1907; the | one hundred and ten articles" law arbitrarily fixes maximum rates upon no articles of commerce; the passen- | ger rate law reduces the passenger
 rate from 3 to 21-2 cents per mile. | The fourth law regulates demurrage charges on cars and the last one for
 bids. under penalty of being outlawed from the State. any foreign corpora
 tion from taking litigation into Fed eral courts, and it is palpable that an injunction against the operation of this law was necessarily precedent or at least concomitant with the inujnctions against the operation of the others. 1 In their bills of complaint the com panies claimed that the operation of the laws affecting their rates would be confscatory. They set forth at length the value of their properties and their amounts of revenues; in some l instances 1t was caimed that expendi- lures had exceeded receipts. and where this claim was not made. 1t was as- serted that the net income had not aoffrded a reasonable rental upon in-
 
 the freight rates they had been charg- ing were fair; that the cost of earn fngs from intra-state traffic was not ably greater than the cost of earn ings from extra-state traffic. and that the reduced tariffs would be ruinous.
 Referring to the "One hundred and ten articles bill" the compliments all legged that the articles designated af- forded at least 80 per cent. of the freight traffic.
 The two and a half cent passenger rate law, the eomplainants averred. would cause a proportionate reduction of passenger traffic revenues.
 The bills of the defendants, the Ala bama Railroad Commission, and the Attorney General. were especially not able in their denial of the valuation of railway properties. The complaint of the Louisville and Nashville Railway Company. for example, had claimed that to reproduce the company's properties in the State would require the expen- allure of $34.900000. which the de- fendant alleges is untrue.
 Here it is interesting to compare with the valuation which the company made of its properties the figures of the assessment made by the State Board of Assessment. The board fix ing the assessment of the Mobile and Montgomery Division at $19,000 a mile, the Nashville and Decatur Division at $22. 900 a mile. the New Orleans and Mobile Division at $19 900 a mile and assessed the entire property at $16,-