The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-12-20
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
SUBMITS ANNUALREPORT TOCONCRESS


Commission with the Commerce
Court in the 25th annual report OF
the Commission transmitted to CON
gress today.
The issue is made principally upon
what popularity is known as the
ns-coitinental rate cases. involy-
ing freight rates from the Atlantic 10
| Pacific Coast terminals and intermed-
late Joints. Existing rates of The
trans-continental lines from eastern
points to inter-RoCky Mountain cities
are materially higher than to Pacific
cost terminals. In decision interp-
reting the long-and-short-hau proyis-
! ion of the present law, the interstate
Commerce commission, directed, by
order, that relation of rates should
be established between the Pacilc
coast and points of origin in five
zones, into which the United States
was divided.
The effect of the order was to re-
duce rates to interRocky Mountain
cities and prevent the railroads from
exacting from shippers the Pacific
coast rate plus the local rates from
Pacific coast terminals to the interme-
diate points. The orders of the Com
mission, on application of the trans
continental carriers were enjoined by
the Commerce Court and the matter
| has been carried, on appeal to the
United States supreme court.
In its report to congress today the
Commission declares that "it is a
waste of transportation and there
fore uneconomical and wrong to
maintain a system of tariffs which
are expressly intended to develop the
Pacific Coast cities and to arrest the
development of the interior points.
1T is impossible to disassociate the
! intermediate from the long distance
point Whether the intermediate rate
is reasonable depends upon what rate
is made to other points on both sides
of it, and to permit the railroads of
this country to select points where
they will, and where they will not
compete would be intolerable."
In discussing the effect OF water
competition upon rates the commits
sion says that it cannot fix a rate
from New York to San Francisco be-
low which the rail line shall not go,
for it has no authority to fix a mini
mum rate. There is, therefore, no
way in which it can prevent discrim-
ination by fixing of an absolute rate
at San Francisco and another absolute
rate at Reno 1t can only accomplish
this purpose by prescribing the differ
ence which may properly exist owing
to the effect of this competition and
allowing the carrier to make what
ever rate it sees fit to the more dis
tant point as long as 1t observes this
Gifferential."
The report indicates the desire OF
shippers from points in the interior
of the country to obtain the same
rates to tn Pacific coast that are ac-
corded by the railroads to their COM
petitors on the Atlantic seaboard. The
rates are made the same by the trans
continental lines on the ground OF
market competition.
"To justify their rates from coast
to coast" says the report, "the rail-
roads advance water competition. and
to justify the same rates from interior
points to Pacific coast points they
rely on market competition, under
which they give lower rates from all
| the interior cities two-thirds of the
way across the continent to the same
coast cities than to inter-mountain
points. This is the kind OF discrim-
ination the commission has attempted
to minimize"
While the commission recognizes
the full effect of water competition
upon the rail rates it says we have
the frank admission of the railroad
managers that they have subsidized
or bought some Of the steamship
lines and terrorized others until they
can make the boas. that the effect of
the sea mas been 'neutralized.'
"A railroad policy of rate making
must certainly be subject to limita-
tions of the law. or else there is no
law To say that there is a long-and-
short-haul section under which a GER
rier may not charge more for the
shorter than for the longer haul, but
that the railroads may, to any extent
they please carry out a policy of
blanketing the country for the bene-
fit of the farther points and not the