The Green Forest tribune., 1910-03-25
EXPECT DEBATE:
 ID BE LONG ONE
Difference of Opinion Manifested Among Legislators as to h.
 terstate Commerce.
BILL DRAWN BY PRESIDENT
Chief Executive Said to Have Given tlon-ProJected Court of Pat ent Appeals-The Presl-
 dents Tour.

ent Appeals-The Presl- dents Tour.
 Washington.-There is every indica- ton that the debate In the senate on the amendments to the interstate com | merce act will be long drawn out and that 1t will be marked by many of the acrimonious features of the tariff de- bate of last spring and summer The alignment of senators on the measure will not be exactly the same as that on the customs measure, but the ma | Jority of those who will be in oppos1- tion to the bill as 1t was introduced will be the senators who fought many | of the provisions of the Payne-Aldrich bill
 It is doubtful if there ever was in- troduced into congress a bill upon which there were exactly so many di- verse opinions as there are upon this | measure which the senate now has | under consideration. Of course the | measure affects largely the work of the members of the interstate com | merce commission, and yet the mem- | bers of the commission themselves are at variance In their views as to the | efficiency of the bill in some of its par | ticulars. The amendments were pre- pared in the first instance by a con- | mittee appointed by President Taft. | every one of the members of which was a lawyer of high standing Then MT. Taft went over the measure him. | self bringing to bear on 1t all his ju- | dicial training. The cabinet officers | took it up and sanctioned it and said l it was proof against attack in the | courts
 Experts Disagree.
 There never was such case per 1 haps of supposed experts disagreeing on the efficiency of bill There is provision in the proposed legislation
 which allows the railroads to enter | into traffic agreements on rates. the agreements to be submitted to the in- | terstate commerce commission, who shall be allowed to pass only on the question as to whether the rate as an average Is eXorbitant
 Some members of the interstate | commerce commission declare that | this takes away much from the prop osition as advanced originally by The odore Roosevelt The former presi- dent agreed that the railroads should be allowed to make traffic pools, but said that the interstate commerce com mission should be given the power to nullify them provided it was shown that the pools were contrary to what might be considered public policy Other members of the commission say that as long as they have the power to get at the rate that is all that is necessary and all in which the people are interested. MT. Taft and his law yer members of the cabinet hold to this view and seem to believe that they have smoothed the path through many difficulties by giving the rail- roads the pooling right under the law. President Taft believes that appeal cases should be put into the hands of the attorney generals office for de- fense because he has implicit conf dence in the ability and sincerity of the law officers connected with the
 
 averse to multiplying the legal depart ments of the government.
 For Court of Patent Appeals For years the lawyers of the country, particularly the patent law yers, have endeavored to get con- gress to pass bill to establish a United States court of patent appeals Senator Beveridge recently introduced such bill in the senate and the judicial committee, through Senator Brown of Nebraska. has just reported it favorably
 The day that this bill was reported to the senate it happened that Fred erick P. Fish, an eastern attorney, and who Is called the father of the proposed legislation, was arguing a case in the supreme court only few yards away from the senate chamber MT. Fish ten years ago began a cam- paign for court of patent appeals, and he has been assisted in the work by Edmund Wetmore of New York, at one time president of the American Bar association, and by other promi- nent attorneys in the work of attempt ing to secure the passage of the meas ure.
 In discussing the proposed bill. MT. Fish had something to say about the patent system of the United States and he gave some interesting informa- tion concerning what might be called
 the patent industry of the United
 States and the inventive genius of the American people. "The patent laws are admirable,'. said MT. Fish. "The United States has the finest patent system in the world Under the old
 British system, which prevails largely throughout Europe to-day, parliament rewarded a man who brought busi- ness into the country. He might have picked up the idea in France or Germany. or anywhere else, but the prime purpose of the law was to re- ward him for increasing the business of the kingdom The United States very wisely established the principle that it's citizens should be encouraged to think We granted a man the ex- elusive right for IT years to an in-