Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-06-11
LEWIS ANSWERS
MARTIN; WON'T
ENTER RATE FIGHT
toonsinu.d from First Page,

upon legislation that may be proposed,
whether your opinion or mine Is cor
rect. The proposition that the people
of the State holding all sorts of politi-
cal ideas should be charged with the
expense of a special session of the
Legislature for the purpose of deciding
which of the views of w Individual
Republicans regarding their party or
ganization Is correct, l imagine Will
not appeal very strongly even to your
self after you think II over, nj as !
confess, 1t seems %ridiculous to me, l
will pass this latter suggestion over
with its mere statement In the form
above.
"The real proposition Is, therefore,
that you and I join in a request to the
Governor to cali a special session of
the Legislature and the Importance OF
u particular signatures to this re-
quest Is, that according to your ex-
pressed belief, you are the authoritative
representative of one portion of the
Republicans of the State, and I OF the
rest. As to your credentials | know
nothing, but as to myself. / am com
PEELED to say to you that l have no
authority from any class of Republl-
cans, Progressive or Regular, organ
lied or ~unorganized, to represent them
upon any question, and, therefore, my
name attached to the proposed request
means no more than that of any other
individual in the State.
Acting, therefore, as n other citi-
zen of the State. I say to you that l
do not care to join you in the request
which you have proposed to me with
considerable elaboration, and my rea-
son is this: I am ar official of the
State. appointed by the present Gov
ernor. and owe to him and his ad-
ministration a loyalty, which, accord
ing to my notion, renders it improper
for me to attempt to publicly tell him
what he ought to do.
II was glad to see a public utility
hill passed last winter. AS has been
admirably shown by Assemblyman
Pierce. in his thoughtful review of the
measure. it confers upon the new COM
mission important powers of super
vision over all classes of public service
| corporations, and, indeed, Is only OBJ
jected to by you. in your letter 10 me,
and In such public criticisms of yours
as l hav read, because It does not
give power to the commission to arbi-
trarily fix rates. 1t does give to the
board power to conduct searching in
v~estigatlon Of all rates charged by the
corporations under its jurisdiction and
to make such recommendations as the
board determines to be right.
"In my opinion a recommendation or
this powerful board on the subject or
rates would not be ignored by cor
poration, especially when such corpora
| ton knows that the very next session
of the Legislature will possess the
power to at once enforce the recon-
mendations of the commission. The
Governor of the State will undoubtedly
consider this aspect Of the question,
and IL he should feel. after mature de-
liberation, that the board needs addi-
tiopal power to deal with the present
emergency he will doubtless exercise
his authority under the constitution
and provide the proper legislative rem
edy without being told to do sc by
me. In view of the above facts, l do
not agree with you charge that the bill
VI last year was 4 mere pretext n a
sham
"As a matter of fact, the present
Railroad Commission, composed of
Frank Fl. Sommer, Robert Williams
and Thomas J. Hillery, has, with coni-
mendable promptness, started an in
vestigation of the proposed increase IN
communication rates by the various rail-
roads OF the State n has summoned
the general passenger agents of the
railroads before them. / do not think
that you or any considerable body Of
our citizens will question the integrity
and ability of these gentlemen. | an
ticipate from them an intelligent and
searching investigation of this subject,
in which 80 many of our citizens are
vitality interested, and proper recon-
~mendations based upon the information
they obtain. AS I said before, l do
not believe a recommendation of this
board win be ignored, and. IL it should
be, the Legislature, composed of the
elected representatives of the people,
will have power to enforce such recon-
mendation.
As to Candidates.
Leaving this subject, upon which /
hope l have been frank. I desire to say
a Averdre 0 the subject Of guberna-
torial candidates., 1t being, ! think,
plainly evident that the reason you adj
dress me at all is. because you are q
candidate for Governor and / am sup
posed to be one.
you are an openly announced candi-
date n are exercising your %undoubted
right OF appearing at public meetings
and urging your own nomination. I
nave no criticism of such a course. 1t
Is purely a question OF political ethics,
I am not unaware that / have been
complimented with the mention of my
name in connection with the office.
Without any criticism of your attitude
toward the nomination. I wish simply
to cay to you that l shall not conduct
a ave for the Office and shall not
appear before public meetings asking
for support. make this statement
once and for all in order that you may
understand that because l have courte-
ously and, as I believe, frankly an.