Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1910-01-11
FOR MIR. EATON TO ANSWER.

!
[Des Moines Register and Leader.l
| There are few questions the Reg
lister and Leader wishes to put to Mr..
Eaton, the lawyer member of the board
Of railroad commissioners.
| is it customary for a third party who
has interviewed in a suit for the pur-
pose of assisting the prosecution, to
agree to stipulations that take the
ground out from under the suit. with
out consulting or notifying the main
party in interest?
! According to Mr.. Eatons own show
ing the state board interviewed in the
cattle rate appeal to the interstate
commerce commission for the purpose of
assisting the officers of the Corn Belt
Meat Producers Association. Accord
ing to his own showing the board met
and secretly gave orders to the at
torney general to drop from the case
all question of hog rates. Whether this
notice ever reached the attorney gen
eral or not-he says it did mott did
reach the railroads interested in de-
feating the Corn Belt Meat Producers
appeal, and it did not reach the officers
of the association with which the state
/ board was acting in the case.
! Is this the sort of record Mr.. Eaton
/ as lawyer is willing to stand on be-
fore the bar of the state?
There are those who will attach a
great deal of Importance to the fact
that two members of the state board
We're wined and dined by the officers
OF the @ railroad on the night be-
fore this order was drafted. and that
j it was the o" that had copy of
the order, which nobody else had seen,
until the %" published it in its brief
before the interstate commerce COM
mission. This is a part of the record
that the state commissioners will
doubtless find ii desirable 10 explain.
But the Register and Leader wishes at
this time to direct attention merely to
the one point that the state board,
after having entered the case for the
purpose of helping the meat producers,
| took an action, without notifying them.
that was mainly relied upon by the
railroads TO defeat the whole proceed
ing.
The Register and Leader wishes also
10 ask of MIR. Eaton why having de-
cided on Nov in a formal resolution
unanimously adopted, that there was no
present occasion for attacking the hog
rates from Iowa to Chicago, the com
mlssloners. without any new evidence
IN the matter, have ordered ATTORNEY
General Byers now to join in a demand
for lower hog rateso
What sort of record does it make
for Iowa 10 be thus before the inter-
state commerce commission with two
conflicting declarations, one in the
hands of the railroads to the effect that
the state board has no information
warranting a demand for lower hog
rates. and the other in the hands of the
attorney general ordering him TO fight
for lower hog rates.
1t does not require evidence to con-
vince the ordinary citizen that the
board should either not have adopted
It's November resolution, or it should
have stood by it, And it does not re-
quire evidence to convince the ordinary
citizen that if the board had decided
that the hog rate was equitable as it is.
It should so have notified the officers of
the Corn Belt Meat Producers Associ-
alton with which it was acting. in
stead OF secretly adopting formal res
! oiutlon which Immediately found it's
way into the hands of the %. officials
and of nobody else