Arizona republican., 1910-10-06
SWITCHING CHARGE ACTION
It Was the Chief Event of the Day and Was Gone Into With Techni- cal Particularly By Both Sides.

The hearing of complaints before
 Examiner Charles F. Gerry, represent ing the interstate commerce commits
 sion, was concluded yesterday in the
 disposition of the two Tucson cases.
 Mir. Gerry and MT. Bison, the official
 stenOgrapher, will go to Prescott today
 to conduct hearings there on Friday, of couple of cases of local interest there.
 The first case heard yesterday was
 of small general importance. being merely claim against the Southern Pacific and other lines. for reparation
 in the matter of the shipments of a carload of soap to Nogales by Albert Steinfeld & Co, that firm being the
 complainant. No counsel appeared for the complainant who was represented by it's traffic manager, c. E. Ellsworth,
 who merely sought to place the facts
 on. record. The testimony was taken and the case submitted on it's merits
 between 10 and II o'clock.
 Though the claim made Is not a large one, the facts are quite interest ing. In November. 1908, the rate on i soap from St. Louis to Nogales was s1.22. Shortly thereafter the railroad published a supplemental tariff sheet reducing the rate to S110, whereupon the complaint ordered a carload of soap , shipped to Nogales. Before the soap was received, word was received that the interstate commerce commission
 had rejected supplemental tariff sheet No. 19 establishing the $1.1O rate and i had restored the rate to $122. The Steinfeld company had to pay the lat ter rate and has put in a claim for the
 difference between that rate and $1.10.
 but has made no demand for the changing of the soap rate to Nogales,
 which has since been raised to S1.5S:
 Switching Charge Case.
 The case of the Tucson Shippers as sociatiOn versus the Southern Pacific
 is an action having for it's object a ruling that will do away with the charge of $2.5O now demanded by the railroad company for each car spot
 ted" in front of the warehouse of any particular shipper, for his convenience in loading and unloading. The shippers contend that it is a practice that is not always followed in other places. Phoe- nix for instance, or where there is close competition for business between railroads. Moreover, they sought to
 
 more expense to the railroad company to place the cars where they wanted them for unloading. than to place them on the team" or public sidetrack, built for that purpose. where they could be
 unloaded by team. The contention of the company is that it is much more expensive to so place the cars, figures
 being introduced designed to show that fs. n
 or that it costs s5.51 cents to place 8
 car on the team track and $7.S1 to
 place it on the 'industriaP' or shippers track in front of their warehouses. Some of the shippers also produced contracts and others mentioned verbal agreements in their testimony, to the effect that they had paid a portion of the expense of the construction of the track to secure this convenience. 9th
 CTS testified that while they had not participated in the cost Of construction they had been induced to buy the property on which their warehouses stand, and build there. with the under I standing that they were to have that convenience, at a time preceding the | inauguration of the switching charge. | The greater part of the day was de- voted to the witnesses of the com- plainant. The major part of the tes- | timony was in respect of physicaLfacts
 as to the location of tracks in respect of each other, the practice of the ship l pers in loading and unloading, the all legged contracts with the railroads or verbal understands, dates, etc. Mir. billiard, counsel for the railroad com pany, cross questioned each witness | rigidly, merely to secure accuracy of statements, particularly on those points wherein he proposed to show later that they were mistaken in their judgment of the railroad cOmpany's services in | the matter It seemed to be his pur- pose to find no objection to the physic- al facts or to the facts of what has actually been done by either of the parties of issue. It was apparently | his chief purpose to get the record ac- curately made up, then to demonstrate | that while the switching charge had (C0utiuuad on Page EiVe1