Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-14
FINANCIAL HEADS BLAMED
HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR IN
JURY TO RAILWAYS
Judge Cowan Argues in Favor of the
Culberson-Smith Car and Trans
portation Bill.

The Senate committee on interstate
commerce today gave hearing on the
CulbersOn-Smith car and transportation
service bill. under which railroads en-
gagged in interstate commerce would be
required to promptly furnish cars to ship
pers.
Under the bill the interstate commerce
commission is given wide latitude to
provide rules and regulations which shall
govern the details of compliance with the
act. including matters pertaining to no.
tice to furnish cars. the exchange of cars
between railroads, the time limit on the
supplying of equipment. demurrage and
other matters. so that rules can be ad-
justed to suit the varying conditions. 1t
provides penalties for noncompliance
with the regulations made by the COM
mission.
Judge Cowan's Argument.
Those who spoke in behalf of the meas
ure were Judge s. H. Cowan of Texas,
who was one of President Roosevelt's ad
visers in relation to recent railroad rate
legislation: Col. l. T. Pryor. president Of
the Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas;
Murdo Mackenzie of the American Live
Stock Association. C.. w. Merchant of
Texas and A. f. De Rickles of Colorado.
Representatives of grain and hay interests
also appeared.
Judge Cowan addressed himself chiefly
to arguments that have been made
against such legislation on the ground
that the car shortage has been due to the
inability of manufacturers of rolling stock
to keep pace with the demands. He pre-
sented a mass of figures, showing the
increase of business compared with the
increase of equipment, which he inter-
preted to refute the objections made by
the railroads to the passage of the bill.
In this connection Judge Cowan asked:
''Why is it that the railroads have given
such disaStl Gus service to the shippers as
is admitted by their own figures and
provable by the common knowledge Of
everybody anc the individual experience
sworn reports they are possessed of more
facilities for performing the service in
the way of cars, locomotives and main
line tracks In proportion to the traffic
than they had ir 1890. period of gener-
ally satisfactory service?"
Replying to his own question. he said:
The answer which we believe has not
been clearly presented before lies in these
tndisputable fisnres that the tonnage sys-
tenn whereby they have attempted to make
their locomotives and train crews perform
an extraordinary amount of service lies
at the bottom q: the failure to get out of
their facilities relatively what they got
before
IL does not. therefore, lie In the mouths
OF the railroads to say that the law shall
not fix penalty to compel them to per-
form reasonable service for the alleged
reason that they have not procured and
cannot procure the facilities to do 1t,
when incontrovertible facts prove the as
sertion untrue"
Financial Heads Blamed.
Judge Cowan insisted that it was the
financial heads Of the railroads who
have hurt the railroad corporations, and
not the people who furnish the business
and pay the freight; not the luckless
and innocent stakeholder whom every
body is anxious to protect He charged
that these financial heads" have injured
the corporations by increasing the In
debtedness Of the roads. and directly or
indirectly pocketing the money Now,
we want to help the railroad as a cor
poration. but We owe no allegiance to the
railroad king who acts toward the public
as II he were king indeed" he said.
It was said by Judge Cowan that the
bill before the committee is the only one
that has been formulated to present in
concrete and exact forms just what the
shippers think ought to be DONE He
said that all Of the interests represented
at the hearing were In favor of the bill,
and these interests involved the prosperity
OF the ans-Mississippf country.