Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1912-08-22
BY Vote OF AZ TO IS they
PASSED LAW giving ALL
AMERICANS BEST.
Was 2 Fight on Toll Plan-RaiIroad-
Owned Vessels to Be Prohibited
From Using the Waterway-Taft to
Sign Canal Bill-Some Provisions of
Measure 1t Is Said He Objects To.


OF a one-man government when the
canal is completed was passed by the
senate by a vote of AZ to 10.
Attached to the bill as it passed
the senate were two important amend.
ments directed at trust or railroad
control of steamship lines. The first.
by Senator Reed, would prohibit ships
owned by an illegal industrial comb.
nation from using the canal, and the
second, by Senator Bourne, would
force railroads to give up water lines
that might otherwise be their COM
pet1tors, if it were proved that they
were Sitting competition.
Fight Free Toll Provision.
Opponents of the free toll provision
for American ships, against which
Great Britain made formal protest.
carried their fight up to the last mo-
ment of the bills consideration.
AS the bill passed it would permit
American coastwise vessels to pass
through the canal free without condi.
tons, while American foreign trade
ships might pass through free if their
owners agree to sell the vessels to the
United States at a fair price in time
of war or emergency.
The great fight of the day centered
about the provision to prohibit rail.
ships from using the canal.
Inc broad terms of the original
house bill, which would have required
every railroad in the country to dis
pose at once of any steamship lines
with which it might otherwise com.
pete were modified to that railroads
would be prohibited only from owning
steamship ines that may operate
through the Panama canal.
Forcing the Railroads.
The Bourne amendment, however.
adopted later by a vote of SO to 25. re.
stored much of the vigor of the anti
provisions of the house bill.
provided that if the interstate COM
merce commission should find that any
had an interest in any com.
line of steamships and hat
interest were detrimental to pub
lie interests the commission might
force the railroads to dispose of such
interests.
The Reed amendment against trust
owned ships was called up for a second
vote before the bill passed and was
adopted on final passage by a vote of
SO to %.
In the form in which it returns to
the house the bill adds TO the general
scheme for operating and governing
the Panama canal provisions for the
admission American registry of any
ships owned by Ameri.
cans, provided they are operated
wholly in the foreign trade.
Violation of Treaty.
Senator Brandegee, closing the de.
bate, insisted that the provision of the
senate bill, admitting American yes.
sells engaged in the foreign trade to
free passage in the canal, was an I'M.
violation of the Hay-Paunce-
tote treaty with Great Britain.
He opposed also the Williams
amendment admitting American-owned
vessels to American reg
istry, provided they did not engage in
coastwise trade.
Taft Will Sign.
President Taft says that he expects
sign the Panama canal bill. The
president is said to have declared that
of the provisions of the measure
did not meet with his views entirely.
but that he expected to approve it.
Railroad and legal experts in con-
gress hold the view that the senate
authorized a highly important exten.
sion Of the power of the interstate
commerce commission in adopting the
Bourne amendment to the Panama
canal bill.
The provision would authorize the
commission to divorce competing rail.
and steamship lines, wherever
they were found to operate to the det-
riment of the public, and would ex-
powers of regulation over water
Professor G~iddings Rants.
New York.-Professor Franklin H
Giddings, head of the department of
sociology in columbia university, be-
lieves that the granting Of free passage
to American ships through the Panama