Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-26
Interstate Commerce Bill
Amendments Are Defended

Eighth. In the first regular session Of
Congress the Attorney General. with the
assistance OF Interstate Commerce Com
missioners Knapp and Prouty and Sena-
tor Townsend. agreed upon the basis of
needed amendments to the interstate
commerce law. The bill drawn upon this
basis passed very much as we recon-
mended it except that telephone and tele-
graph companies were put under the COM
mission. 1t is an excellent measure,
bringing the railroads much more COM
pletely under the commissions control
than ever before. We attempted to en-
body other provisions in the bill. which
were defeated. These defeated amend
ments Mr.. Roosevelt denounces as vicious
and seeks to create the impression that
my administration IL entitled to no credit
for the act as 1t became law, although
it was passed by republican votes ,and
signed by mo as President There were
perhaps ten insurgents and forty-two reg
ulars who voted for the bill In the SEN
ate, but he contends that only the in
surgents are to be commended for the
bill. What were the vicious provisions
defeated by the insurgents? One provi-
sion prohibited the future purchase by one
road OF stock in competing road, an
other with clauses protecting minority
u
ton already existed. Another introduced
q limitation as to the issuing Of stocks
and bonds to be controlled by the inter-
state commerce commission. Another
made. legal and took out Of the antitrust
law certain temporary agreements be-
tween railroads as to rates. All these
things had been recommended by Mr..
Roosevelt and had been promised in the
platform Of the republican party. but in
the Senate they were stricken out at the
n Insurgents he
that they involved too great an amend
ment tothe antitrust law. In view Of his
support OF these very provisions in his
messages and elsewhere, is 1t a square
deal for him now to describe them as
vicious?
Mr.. Roosevelt also complains Of the es-
tablishment Of the Commerce Court as q
reactionary step. 1t has rendered few
decisions which have not met the views
of the Interstate commerce commission
because 1t reversed that commissions
action, and, therefore, the cry is the court
must be recalled. The Commerce Court
was created for the purpose Of expedition,
so that when a shipper secured an order
peal was taken, 1t could be promptly dis
posed Of. The Commerce Court has re-
duced the average time of the examina-
ton Of orders of the interstate commerce
commission from tive years to six months.
II the Commerce Court exceeds its juris-
diction or makes wrong decision. then
the Supreme Court Is at hand to remedy
1t. and that IL what the Supreme Court is
now doing with its decisions; but il the
Commerce Court Is abolished, then the
shippers Of the country will be RENTED
again at the instance Of the railroads to
sixty or seventy United States courts all
over the country, there will arise great
of decisions, and the delays
which are now reduced to six months will
again be increased to two years. That Is
what the statistics show. Those are the
facts, and they are not the loose and
vague Indictment Of one who does not
know and who depends only upon second
hand Information for his statement.