Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1912-01-04

them and having opportunities of
personal examination and investiga-
ton not available to the court, should
be presumed to have acted reasona-
| bly, and fairly. We do not under
stand that it is intended, by the Ian
: guage adverted to, to impose upon a
! plaintiff in a suit of this character
the necessity of producing a greater
amount Of proof to sustain its case
than would be required to overturn
the finding of any other select body
OF experts, charged with the duty of
ascertaining a fact by testimony and
actual physical examination of condi-
tions. The Office of railroad commits
sioner is one of great responsibility
and charged with difficult and deli
cate functions. It involves, to some
extent, the task of directing a railway
corporation to use its funds for par
ticular purposes of improvement or
for the betterment Of its service,
without its consent and sometimes
contrary TO its wishes That such a
power should be exercised with ex-
treme caution does without saying,
and the infrequency of appeals to
this court from such decisions, indi-
Gates that the commissioners, select
ed by the people of this state to see
that the rights of the public in mat
ters of transportation are property
protected, have performed that duty
fairly and faithfully. Giving to the
decisions of this body, in the lam
guage of the United States supreme
court in Ill. Cent. R. Co. v. Inter
state Commerce Com, 206 U. S. AL,
'the weight to due to the decisions of
a tribunal authorized by law and in
formed by experience, we are una
BILE to say that the order in question
is unreasonable.
The proceedings before us show
that the investigation was held near
the place of the controversy so that
the commissioners had an opportuu-
ity, which we have not had,
to view the premises. Testimony
was taken on both sides and the re-
quest for a flag station was dis-al-
lowed. 1t is evident that there was
no intent to be oppressive and the
order made does not seem to impose
any great financial burden upon the
company. 1t is true that there does
not appear to be great amount of
traffic at this point at present, but
there seems to be enough to justify
the conclusion that the laying down
of 300 feet of track will not require
the plaintiff to do the business at
Eisenhower at loss, or materially to
diminish its profits therefrom. In
coming to this conclusion we do not
take into consideration the chances
for future increase of business by the
impetus that may be given to the
industries of Eisenhower by improved
facilities for transportation because
we do not conceive that either the
commission or this court should di-
rect increased facilities to be in
stalled for the purpose of making
traffic not shown to be potentially In
existence. In other words the power
of the commission should be exer-
cised to facilitate actual business
not speculatively to create business
where none exists. Giving to the in
vestlgations of the commission their
due weight, and taking into consid-
Grafton the number of inhabitants
whose shipping would naturally
gravitate to Eisenhower, because OF
its accessibility, it seems not un-
reasonable to say that there is busi-
ness enough in sight to justify the
small outlay required by the COM
mission. If, in fact, it should tran