Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-01-04

six Of the great railroad systems of
the country, President Taft announced
late today change of program in the
sending to Congress his message deal
ing with interstate commerce and anti
trust law amendments. The message
will DE split in two parts. The section
dealing with the trusts will be sent to
Congress at noon Thursday. The section
dealing with the interstate commerce
law. in which the railroads are direct
ly interested, will be deferred until
Friday noon. The Presidents special
message on the conservation of natural
resources is expected to be ready for
Congress next Monday.
1t had been the Presidents original
intention to treat together the two sub
iects OF interstate and antitrust
amendments. But it was explained late
today that the message would propa-
bly, receive greater attention if divided
into two parts, neither more than 1000
words long.
AS a result of the 2-hours call of the
railroad presidents it was said that a
few verbal changes would be made in
the draft of the message dealing with
the interstate commerce law, and that
these would be such only as to clarity
the meaning of the recommendations.
President Taft found the railroad
men most considerable in presenting
their views. While they deprecated any
legislation at all now, when they de-
cared conditions in the railroad and
industrial worlds are righting them :
selves, after two years of more or less
depression, they did not seek to deter
the President from sending his mes
sage They devoted themselves to more
or less specific objections to the Dill
prepared by Attorney General Wicker
sham. which forms the text for the
The President it is declared,
will not attempt to force the Wicker
snam or any other bill upon Congress.
The railroad presidents admitted
that their objections to the proposed
amendments to the Interstate com
merce act We're applied, generally
sDeaking, to all of the amendments.
The President, however, had made
his position clear to J. Pierpont Nor
gan in a brief interview before break
last last IIludy oiiiiAS'
Mr. Morgan afterwards arranged for
tOdays conference and advised the
railroad men to confine themselves to
suggestions of changes in the amend
ments rather than to an attempt 10 m
huence the President as to ms general
course. Mr.. Taft had let it be known
tbat he will not only recommend
changes in the law but that he expects
Congress to adopt the suggestions at
this session and thus carry out tlie
promises of the Republican party as
written in the Chicago platform.
The railroad men who attended the
conference today were President NC
Rae Of the Pennsylvania. Lovett OF the
Union Pacific and other Hartman
lines. Brown Of the New York Central,
Ne]len of the New York, New Haven
&, hartford. Raer of the Philadelphia
& Reading and Finley of the southern.
They brought Lewis Cass Ledyaru OF
New York with them as general couh-
eel Attorney General Wickersham rep
resented the legal department OF the
government.
One of the changes which President
Taft agreed to make in his Recommended
tions has to do with the language OF the
nroposed amendment prohibiting rail-
road company from acquiring STOCK III any
competing railroad in the future, or from
holding stock in a competing railroad al
ter a given date.
The law. as President Taft will suggest
If. will provide that where a railroad
GUNS "a ner cent or more of the stock OF
another it NAV acquire the remainder.
This. it is said, would afford a measure
Of protection to minority stockholders'
for if the railroad owning the majority
stock would be prohibited from acqulr-
ing any more the minority would lose
their only probable purchaser But where
a railroad holds less than the majority
of stock in another line it will be pro-
vided that it can acquire no more.
Nothing in the interstate commerce
amendments will be so drawn as to legal
ize in any way holding stock in a COM
netting line where holding such stock vio-
lates the antitrust laws. The proposed
interstate commerce court of five mem
bers to consider appeals from the inter-
state commerce commissioner, with an
appeal only to the supreme court of the
United States, was particularly objected
to by the railroad representatives. They
declared that the court would soon be-
come nothing more than a second COM
mission. They preferred appeals direct
from the commission to the federal
courts The recommendation for a court
however, will remain in the message.
The railroad presidents objected great.
" also to the proposed restrictions upor