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

SATURDAY., AUGU' constitution and read the articles con- trolling public service and other corpora lions, and read the commission law based on this, and read the whole history Of their commission and commission law as applied to the public ervice corporations of Georgia, and study the conditions of the Georgia farmer and the Georgia mer- chant, and also study Atlanta. city built on red hills by the commerce, h. dustries and agriculture of Georgia. aid go down to Macon and Savannah and see the same conditions there. and then think of Montgomery, Mobile and Selma
 The Reply of Tombs
 Then send out and get the reply Of Mir. Toombs to the Georgia lawyers in that great constitutional convention of 1877 in which they charged Tt Is | sacred thing to shake tho pillars upon which the property of the coun- try rests Hear Mir. Toombs reply:
 Better shake the pillars of property than the pillars of liberty" The right to control these railroads belongs to the state, to the people. As long as represent the people I will mot con sent to surrender 1t, so help me God The great question is. shall Georgia
 
 corporations govern Georgia? Choose ye his day whom ye shall serve
 In the Judges Youth
 Back in the Alabama house of rep resentatives years ago was a young man whom the people had trusted and made member of their legislature Unlike Toombs he secured the control not for the people. but for the rail- roads, and that day he chose whom he should serve. and from that day to this he has never swerved in his course and his fellow citizens. the people of Alabama, have paid the cost in prestige and money.
 Was he right? Go to Congress to- day, anywhere in the United States, and see the titanic struggles which the people arc making to escape these very conditions which he and such as he brought about under the influence and pay which the Archbolds and Morgans have exercised for the enslaying and taxing of the people.
 Alabama and Georgia Then, masters and judge, go with me to West Point, where the Western road crosses the Georgia state line into Alabama and increases the passenger rate 50 per cent and on the articles of common production, consumption and uses increases the rate an average of one-third. They say that Alabama intrastate tonnage is not as great as Georgia's. but it is as great as Geor- gia's. but it is as great as Georgia's was 30 years ago. 20 years ago, 1t Is greater than when the Georgia rate was put in and enforced The Georgia rate built the people, built the ton mage. built the road. Even MT. Smith | introduced the earnings of these very roads. which verifes every contention | that we have made. We know that the same condition would prevail in Ala | bama if given the same opportunity, because these contentious of ours are
 the very philosophy of every business. Contentious to the contrary are pulling and can only be used before courts either prejudiced or suborned. Alabama production, agricultural and industrial, in the philosophy of in-
 trastate rate making, as adopted by the
 Central and Louisville and Nashville
 railroads, in so far as they could pos state business and the whole gist of
 their freight schedules is to make 1t
 more and more interstate and less and | less intrastate.
 Rights of the Common People "The judge says Advertiser. 7th) Con | stitutional rights are not to be enforced | or denied upon technical grounds of plead l ing or views of the burden of proof. The courts in the adjustment of rights are I often compelled to ascertain the existence
 Of many things which are not capable Of
 proof by mathematical demonstration,
 and in ascertaining the adjustment ot
 rights and the remedying of wrongs. all l that is possible or requisite is to get the l best possible proof which the nature of I the inquiry is susceptible of, and that l having been done to determine the right accordingly, though it cannot be proven | to a mathematical certainty That is | the cream, and things would be different I if the judge and his masters had known l the needs and understood the desires of l the plain people. and that they too had rights which the courts are bolnd to as- | certain and protect. But 1t Is hard 10 ex- l tract or determine the peoples tights, the ordinary shippers dues, from judges. or others. of suburned corporate minds and i corporate pay.
 "rhe people made the law and made the property and made the courts, and never | intended that property should take the | law and the courts and enslave them The | people, unlike Lazarus. will not be con | tent to take the crumbs from the rich | mans table. The Dives in this case is be- 1 ing protected.
 "Lioyd-George. the English statesman, said the time has come for the thorough 1 oyerhauling of conditions that time comes | in every enterprise. commercial nation- I al and religious, and woe be unto tho generation that lacks the courage to un- l dertake the task.
 | MT P. Sid Bowie, Louisville and Nasn- | vile attorney, has been formulating some l freight rate schedules and making some 1 very broad statements in comparing the Louisville and Nashville to other roads. He has also attempted to criticise and
 answer some freight rate facts as print ed by MT. w. D. Nesbitt in the Ledger
 of July 29. Mir. Nesbitt Is business man and rate expert, ex-raiiroad commis sion- CT conceded one of the best the state ever had. Mir. Bowie answered Mir Nes- bitt's piece in the same way that Mr.
 Smith makes all his statements. There is trace of truth in the whole thing. but the Bowie and Smith statements what MT Nesbitt calls untrue.
 Untrue Statements Judge Jones in his opinion said that under the law the other roads were al- lowed to charge 15 per cent to 45 per cent more than the Louisville and Nashville. This also is untrue. Quoting by memory from Mir. Selheimer: on 75 per cen. of the business of the Louisville and Nashville road in Alabama it absolutely makes It's own rates. In the state rates on the no articles, 80 per cent of them are alike. On the others in different scales of per- ceDtages according to the articles itself and the road, the prices vary from 10 to 50 per cent higher than the first class
 road, and the experience of many states