The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23
NO RIVER RATE VAR SAYS ], M. DEWBERRY Explains Conditions In "B and
 c Territory WHY THE RATES ARE LOWER Official Says State Should Not and Cannot Control River Traffic.
 How Shippers Are
 Affected.
WHY THE RATES ARE LOWER

VI 1hoDilS hdEDOr ana the opening or our
 great rivers. but more especially in their
 use. The counties served by the Ala
 bama, Tombigbee and Warrior rivers have
 one-third the population of the state, pro-
 duce over one-half it's cotton. embrace two-thirds of its commercial interests and penetrate the coal fields. When the last large appropriation for these waterways
 was sought and secured over two years ago, the committee on rivers and har-
 bors said that the government wishes to
 see these rivers used, and that some in- | telligent efforts in that direction should
 be made or else continued appropriations
 would not be justified. Our company is
 not only committed to the government
 but to the people of Alabama, to utilize
 and develop these rivers and to free them from railroad domination which has ex- 1 isted either directly or indirectly for over
 30 years. No one can blame the railroads for desiring to stlhe and throttle the rivers which are not only competitors for business, but the only natural and perfect regulators of railroad rates. It is but natural for railroads to have fought l the Panama canal and to continue their fight against river appropriations in Con-
 gress. It must not be wondered at that the railroads will always try to have railroad traffic men on or connected with ] commissions In order that great railroad
 questions may be correctly handled; and 1t must not be forgotten that if the rivers
 are to be controlled by railroad" com
 missions, that such control will naturally be from a railroad point of view No greater calamity could befall the rivers
 than that the railroad commission should
 be able to control them. This is no at-
 tack on the very excellent gentlemen, and
 the writer's personal friends, who com
 pose the Alabama railroad commission,
 but We wish to point out the natural dan
 gers. These dangers are not only polit- ical, as intimated above, but are prac-
 tical also. No one will deny the individ-
 ual right to everybody to use the rivers
 when they please. and to the extent they
 please, for business or for pleasure con-
 sistent with marine law The president
 of the Alabama railroad commission not
 only admits that the commission cannot enforce its rates, but it cannot regulate schedules, the length of the run or the
 number of boats in service, and yet all
 these affect the cost of doing business
 and the cost must affect the rates Under
 old conditions, where there were many
 private boat owners, they would cut rates, fight, combine and put up the
 rates. Every boat owner now on the
 rivers except our company has been in
 these fights and combinations. They are
 now demoralized over the fact that the
 railroad commission cannot compel our
 company to live up to the so-called legal
 rates and allow them to do as they
 please. Our company has never tried to expose the methods of its competitors for
 the reason that they had a perfect right
 to do as they please, to use the rivers and to fight us to their hearts content,
 but we cannot refrain from calling at
 tention to a few facts in this connection. l. It has been claimed that we are an
 unfriendly foreign corporation. This is not true We are chartered under the
 laws of Alabama, paid the state of Ala bama one of the largest corporation fees
 ever paid into the state treasury, our taxes are paid in Alabama, and we SUD-
 port over 150 men and their families. 1 stock of our company is principally owned
 in Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and 1 bama men.
 2. About one year ago we were about to place an order for new, modern stean- boats and barges to use on these rivers, but the steamboat owners-all of them
 desired to sell and offered their boats. We bought those We considered reason- bly, priced and we will not allow anyone to force us to purchase boats at a big
 price just to get rid of competition. We
 shall allow them to remain 'independ-
 ent' and to pose as friends of the peo-
 pie. The "combnation" records of the past and their real "sell out" efforts of
 the present are not consistent with their
 claims of independent" saviors of the
 people.
 We are not demoralizing traffic. There
 is nothing deplorable in present condi-
 tions We have reduced rates because
 the railroad commission got out of the
 way, which allowed us to put in the
 barge line' rates, which we attempted
 to put in last November. The barge
 line' itself will soon be inaugurated. We shall not attempt to explain the railroad commissions attitude on this point. Why they feel such interest in our com petNors is too much for us to even ven :
 ture to guess. Why they did not wish the people to have reduced rates no one
 can understand. Of course any rate,
 however high, is too low if the tonnage
 moved by the boat is too light, but here
 are some facts: The round trip capacity
 of a large steamboat is 700 tons, and the average rate under the commission s
 tariff is over s2.50 per ton, making a revenue of $1750 per round trip, if fully
 loaded. The expense of such a trip is
 not over $900, leaving a profit of over $650 per trip. Such a boat making two trips
 a week, fully loaded will earn $3500 on an expense of not over $1000, giving a profit of over s2500 per week. These figures are maximums. Small boats make less and lack of tonnage one way cuts profits and too many boats cut tonnage and so on, until a steamboat can easily lose money even at high rate. It Is really a matter of tonnage. The Birmingham and Gulf company has worked up it's through business from New York, Bos- ton, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore and other eastern points, and from Chi cago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis and New Orleans and other western points to Montgomery, Selma. Demopo- lis and Tuscaloosa, to an extent where our tonnage is large. When our "barge line" is put in operation our tonnage capacity will be increased and our oper- atng expenses curtailed. For these req
 sons we have reduced rates and we re- spectfully request the public. and espe- cially the shippers along the rivers, to consider these facts and be not deceived by those who deceitfully cry trusts and dangers of combinations. We assert ff At fAr | 1,a