The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-31

1 the country rest, exclaimed a member O,
 the convention. Better shake the pillars
 of property than the pillars of liberty,
 Toombs retorted The right to control
 these railroads belongs to the state, to
 the people, and as long as l represent
 the people I will not consent to surrender | it, so help me God The spirit of Toombs l dominated the convention. Men moved | up the aisle to take their seats at his l feet, as he announced the new doctrine
 and poured out his strong appeals. The
 power of the legislature to regulate rail-
 roads was a new principle in Georgia.
 The great question is he said, shall
 Georgia govern the corporations, or the ! corporations govern Georgia. Choose ye
 this day whom ye shall serve The house
 rang with cheers: the majority was with
 hlm. The principle is now in the organic law of the state.n
 First Principle of Rate Making l Under this organic law the Georgia | legislature enacted a statute creating a
 commission and gave that commission the power to classify the railroads and | fix the rates. The first chairman was Campbell Wallace, one of the best rail- road experts the South ever produced | MT Wallace laid down as the first prin- l ciple of freight rate making, that arti- 1 cles of common production, consumption and use should be carried at rate, not
 to secure within itself profit to the car 1 rier, but at such rate as would induce | increased production and consumption and so increased benefit to all the people and the railroads alike.
 This is exactly the same policy which | has marked the present session of Con- gress. The democrats under the leader ship of Underwood ard Clark have pre-
 sented bill after bill striking the tariff tax off 100 articles of common produc- ton, consumption and use. They have also presented bills to reduce the tariff | charges on all those articles which go into the homes of common. people, and have made every effort to prevent those combinations of capital to form trusts out of which has grown the power to tax the people on the basis of that the traffic will stand. Classifying the Roads
 'Mr. Campbell Wallace classified the | roads of Georgia into first, second, third
 and fourth classes and what is known as log roads. He then classified the freight | itself, and on all articles of common pro- duction. consumption and use, he estab hshed the rate the same on all the roads, declaring 1t to be the very philosophy of the carrier service that the people
 were in co-partnership with the carrier, | and that as the people prospered, so would the railroads prosper
 "Regardless of what profit they might 1 fail to make those things which are
 necessary to the success of the farmer, and the creative industries. these neces- stiles of production and consumption nut be carried at such a rate that agri- culture and manufacture shall be con-
 ducted at a profit. Production both on the farm and In the mill must be en-
 couraged, for with these unsuccessful and unprofitable, no common carrier could itself live and prosper
 Therefore all the roads. no matter what their physical structure or earning capacity. had to carry these things at the same price. Then he made percent ages on other goods not so necessary: he made percentages of higher charges let ting second class roads charge a slightly higher price than first class and third than second. and fourth than third, etc.,
 and so on as to all other articles of fl eight with increasing ratio of difference to all the roads.
 The Carriers Protest
 And this too. is exactly what Congress is doing, in fact what every progressive country is doing. The railroads protested that they would be confiscated and de- stroyed, but that was before the time of suborned courts. and so the rates were enforced. As MT. Wallace foresaw, the shippers were protected and they pros pered, and the railroads had their full share, always did and always will MT. Trammell succeeded Mir. Wallace as president of the Georgia commission, and he continued and enlarged the pro-
 tective laws for the producer and con sumer. Under the direction and control of these two men Georgia took the front rank In successful state regulation and control of public carrier service.
 Texas Follows Georgia
 Senator Culberson of Texas resigned the Federal Senatorship to accept the chairmanship of the first railroad com
 mission of Texas. He appealed to Mir. Trammell for information on the Georgia law, the Georgia tariff and the Georgia success. Thousands of copies of Mir. Trammelfs letter to MT. Culberson giving tables of comparison of the old and the new rates of Georgia. showing the im- mense saving to the Georgia shipper and the Georgia people, and also showing that the roads had prospered. were used, by the rate reformers of Alabama to inform the legislature and the people.
 '"These rates and classifcations have
 been maintained in Georgia for thirty years, in North Carolina for fifteen years and in Virginia ten years.
 Master Gunter's Views
 "Mr. Gunter as master in the Louis- ville and Nashville trial first decided that under the constitution of the United States the state had no right to interfere with the intrastate rates or to make a local rate and said that while there was no direct decision of the supreme court of the United States to the contrary of this many decisions indicate that such Is the law. There are, however, a number of unconsidered
 dicta to the view that two men may ride the same horse. and may make him go in two directions at the same
 time, or what is just as nonsensical,
 that two shippers from the same de-
 pot may be subjected to different
 charges for an entirely similar serv- Ice.
 "A red headed man in Montgomery
 buys a. ticket over the Western of Ala
 bama to Westpoint Ga. and he pays 2 cents mile for 1t, or for 100 miles he pays $3. A red headed man in At
 lanta buys a ticket to West Point and
 he pays 9 cents a mile for it. or for 100 miles s2 The western railroad
 charges the red headed Alabama man s3 where he charges the red headed
 Georgia man $2. and the same ratio of difference applies against the red head | ed man In Alabama on the 110 articles | of common production, consumption and use This illustrates the wrong and outrageous inequality of the thing
 against which we are contending. MT. Gunter further said: Besides the point just noticed, two others were
 raised and decided in the rate case. One
 that the rate statute classified the
 rates unjustly and therefore unconsti- tutionally in that 1t allowed some roads | to charge higher rates than others