The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-08-04

The Hattiesburg representative
who went to Jackson to atteno til,
meeting of the Railway Commission
yesterday, returned last night very
much impressed with the idea tina.
is about the biggest thing that the com
mission has yet tackled and that its
Importance has not been realized bv
the business interests of the state,
Hattiesburg was represented at the
meeting by Mr.. R. c. Hauenstein,
cashier of the National Bank of Com
merce: Mr.. ]. A. Jarvis and Secretary
Bixler, of the Commercial Club. There
were also representatives from Me-
ridian, Brookhaven and Jackson com
mercial bodies and all the traffic de-
partments of the railways in the state.
After consultation of the members
of the commercial bodies it was de-
cided that the best thing to do was to
ask a continuance so that the mat
ter might be more thoroughly consid-
cred as no one had appreciated the
far reaching Importance of the pro-
posed order In considering the mat
ter it was easily discerned that Com
missioners Lee and Scott we're not
very favorable to a continuance but
the forcible manner, in which the i'm
portance of proposed order was dis
cussed and the necessity Of going SLOW
in the matter impressed Chairman
Lee and he voted to continue the case
until the first meeting in September
This action brought forth a vehement
protest from Commissioner Scott who
expressed himself as being ashamed of
the action of the commission. Nj.
Scott was evidently in a very bad
humor with the railways and the rep
resentatives of the commercial bodies
and was not inclined to listen to rea-
son. The position of the Hattiesburg
interests was very clearly stated by
Mr.. Hauenstein who said that he fel,
sure that but very few people had I'M
derstood what the commission pro-
posed to do. He showed the injus-
tice it would do to Hattiesburg who
he said had the interest of the, farmer
Just as much at heart as a business
could have, and that fire.
uuently, owing to their system of
handling the farmers cotton, the
price was as high as in New Orleans,
or at least the farmer realized that
much. He said that a postponement
could do no harm and felt sure that
such action was warranted by the
far reaching Importance of the pro-
posed rates. This was the tenor Of
all the arguments and it so i'm
pressed Commissioner Lee that he
5oted to continue.
Mr.. Lee seemed to think that the
act that the proposed action had not
,een understood, was a reflection on
he commission and that no one was
paying any attention to them, but
lie was told that the people generally
lad understood it to mean an equal
ling of rates, that only affected a few
oints and that they had only realized
\ the last few days what it meant
0 put the cotton rates on mileage
asis.
It is difficult to predict just what
ill result if the commission In ,
lists on putting the order into effect
he natural result of the order will
e to give the cotton business to the
yer towns. That might necessitate
change in other rates, which would |
lean such a loss Of revenue to the
always that they would be compelled
resist the order of the commission.
he railways have not expressed
lemselves on their plan of action and
ade no arguments yesterday, pre-
rring to allow the business Interests
'fected, to make the arguments Ter
10 time being.