The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-11

It shows the justness of the law passed by the last Legislature. that an increase of freight rates could not be made without the consent of the commission or the Legislature. It shows still further that Congress will have to pass the same kind of law or the property of the State will be left to the cupidity of our great cor porations and they can simply levy such taxes as they see proper.
 History of Increases.
 These rates were advertised to be put into effect the first of August. The Georgia merchants got together and asked an injunction before Judge Spear of the Fe deral Court of Georgia. Judge Spear gave hearing at Mt Airy, Ga. MT Nesbit. representing the Railroad Commission. and Judge Weakley. rep- resenting the Attorney General. att tended this hearing. Judge Speer de- cfded that the proposed increase was on the very living of the people, and could not be levied until the fairness of the same was first tried before the Interstate Commerce Commission. He cited the railroads to the fact that some years ago. when they forcibly in- creased their rates on lumber, and put that rate into effect, and that notwith- standing after it was tried by hifn' the Interstate Commerce Commission and by the Supreme Court or lns United States. in which they all agreed that there was no justness for the m. crease. and should be paid oack' yet T understand the railroads have never naid one dollar of it. and the l.. ana N. raiiroad one of the largest corpor- ations declares that they will not pay hack except at the extremity ol '"e law. ,.n.oaa vaa While the L. and N. Railroao was before Sneer. he took occasion to call atten, | tion to this. and also that the l.. ana pai,road by discriminating against tha nor, of Savannah as port. they | intended to destroy that port m aavSi .ad | of Pensacola. and which ne preVeh | will here call attention to @ @ own Inferior Federal Court ana our om iudge. that today the l.. and N. noau ,efusinr to give through export hius of Iading through the port or MO Sia on freight in shipments; gyms | if instead to Pensacola, thus S.nnx,- mating against Mobile anu .Sst in1 our own part. What a pity tas .s.s .hs state has no law by which IL couiu taLa hold of these great corporationss . a~,5 ,oake them treat the property anu neopIe of our State fairly ana oues | Al inc general hearing. MT Nes- | bItt and Judge Weakley belns p,oS ent. the railroads agreed that lns' | would give Alabama the s~nle eou | tions as to rates preceding hnal near inc that they gave Georgia. so Ala hama was protected by this agree ment It is true that some of the raiI- roads afterwards repudiated tnls' none the less 1t was agreed upon. | will state here for informatlon that Mir. Nesbitt, representing the | Commission, went to Huntsville to see Judge Hundley in order to secure | similar iniunction for Alabama, ana 1 we had in mind through Judge Shelby | when we found Judge Hundley was 1 absent, or going to be absent. to se- | cure the same injunction granted py Judge Spear when We found that the | railroads had repudiated> their agree ment: but when Judge Pardee super | seded Judge Spears injunction ana ! put the rates fin pending a trial be- | fore the Interstate Commerce Com | mission, and after this supersedeas was granted by Judge Pardee, We sent Judge weakIey and MT. Nesbitt to | Lenxo, Mass, to confer with Attor- ney General Bonaparte, thinking through him we could get g. restrain | ing order from the Circuit Court Of | the United States pending an invest | igation, and also that we could | institute proceedings against the Southeastern Tariff Association TOT their trust combine to put up increased
 
 Southeast.
 At the nearing in Atlanta. Mir. Him ton, Chairman of the Southeastern Tariff Association, his chief clerk and his stenographer. gave in such testiS mony regarding the operation of .he was evident that an attempt was be- ing made to conceal the facts in the | cases. the stenographer having even gone so far as to burn his stenograph- ic notes just prior to the meeting In Atlanta. So evident WAS this at tempt to conceal facts, that one of the members of the Interstate Commerce Commission, addressing the railroad representatives and their officers from his seat, criticised them for the character of the evidence they were allowing to go in. The Chairman, MT . Hinton, made the statement. that when
 the railroads met to raise freight
 simply had a debating society-mean-
 ing by that, that to vote would be
 against the law.
 Combine is Alleged.
 It was evident from the testimony
 taken in Atlanta that the railroads Of
 this territory are in combine in having
 a general increase in freight rates
 As stated above the first increase is or
 the living of the people; the next thing
 is an incrase on cotton, the product
 of the people, to the Eastern mills.
 They have thrown a subterfuge O:
 freight on a yard of calico, on collars
 cuffs and brooches aside, and are now
 taxing everything a man has to have
 and use and produce, no matter how . poor or rich he is.
 And I will state here that we pro-
 pose to go before the Interstate Com
 merce Commission on every increase
 and see if we cannot stop 1t. It is
 no doubt true that the railroads them
 selves are feeling the brunt of hard
 times. but I do not know of any busi-
 ness of any labor that is not feeling
 the brunt of hard times. and there is
 no justice any where on earth that un-
 der our law we should have one spe-
 cies of property holding the right by
 law to tax other property in order
 that they may escape the economies
 that come from bad times
 I went from Atlanta to Washington
 to see Attorney General Bonaparte and President Roorevelt and laid the facts