The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-28

citizen in protecting his own rights and those of the travelling public generally. A gentleman residing In Washington re- gently bought transportation for his wife to the Pacific coast. He wanted 1t by way of Portland to Seattle. The ticket agent said he could not sell 1t that way, that she would have to go to Portland and buy the ticket to Seattle from there, She did this, but was after wards informed by relative. who was a railroad official that her ticket should have read from Washington to Seattle. via Portland She wrote her husband 10 this effect and he took it up with the railroad to recover the extra fare paid. The correspondence grew so voluminous and intricate that he had to carry 1t to the interstate commerce commission to find out what It meant. They are now trying to straghten the matter out
 An eastern road was in the habit of running only one day coach on q train carrying heavy day traffic Every day from ten to twenty people were unable to find seat unless they paid extra to ride in the Pullmans X traveller wh) knew something of what the commission can do. chanced to ride on that train one day. He could not find q seat during the whole journey for himself or his semi invalid wife. He asked the conductor if his train was usually so crowded and was answered in the affirmative. The traveller gave the interstate commerce commission the facts. and within week there was another coach added to that train. and ever since the people are getting the seats they pay for.
 One of the greatest troubles the com mission has is to make the railroads give equitable rates to non-competing points. Until recently shippers of cattle and grain in western Wisconsin were obliged to ship their consignments west 10 St Paul and thence back over the same line by the very point where they originated, in or der to get the most advantageous rate, In other words the rate for carrying if q hundred miles or more west and thence back again right past the starting point DanVille had the same sort of trouble After she had raised hundreds of thou sands of dollars to build a competing road. the Southern got it, and Danvile people had to pay more by 20 to 40 per cent on freight from the south than did Lynchburg, whose freight was carried right by Danville's odrs and fifty miles further. miller in Staunton. some 2e0 miles from Newport News, had to pay more per barrel in freight charges than did the miller in St. Paul, some 1500 miles away, and the shipment of the St. Paul miller went by the door of the Staunton mill
 An official of the commission joculariy observed that if he had some cash ahead he would build him a little railroad and defy the law. He said that what he could accumulate from excessive rates would more than make up for any repara- tion he would have to make. He had Tn mind the reparation claims under the de- csion of the commission, and if the su preme court in the question of rates on southern pine lumber. The railroads of the south several years ago got together and increased the rate 2 cents per hun dred pounds. The lumbermen carried the matter to the commission and got a fa- vorable decision. The railroads carried 1t to the supreme court but lost their case. The effect of this was that the railroads had to repay overcharges to the shippers who demanded them. The total over charges amounted to over $5,0000Oo, yet when the time for asking reparation ex- pred only S2.500000 had been asked for. This simply meant that many shippers did not keep posted about their business, and had no knowledge of what was com ing to them permitting the railroads to rake in $2,500,OO0 profit as result of their carelessness.
 Tomorrow Steamboats and Correspond ents