The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-12
POINTS OUT DANGER
 IN RAYbURN BILL Senator West of Georgia Gives out Correspondence HURTFUL TO SOUTH Commerce Commission Given Au- thority Over All Local Improve ments Contemplated by
 the Railroads
HURTFUL TO SOUTH

Atlanta, August 11.-(Special) )-United States Senator w. S. West of Georgia has
 made public a letter which he has just received from prominent southern busi- ness man. pointing out the danger to the south in certain features of the Ray
 burn railroad securities bill now pending in Congress.
 Senator West. while vouchng for the author, withholds his name at present while the bill is under consideration; but he makes it public in order to show wherein lies the danger to southern de- velopment from certain features of this act if it should be passed in its present shape
 l The writer points out that the Raybarn bill in effect makes the interstate com merce commission at Washington the board of directors and managers of the 1900 or 400 railroads of the United States | and proposes to compel all of the existing railroads and all contemplated railroads to await an investigation by that commits sion as to whether it should run railroad tracks into undeveloped agricultural ter ritories, to proposed sites for industrial | factories, to coal, iron or other mines, or into any other territory whatsoever. | Not only this, but he points out that the Reyburn bill proposes to give each of the state railroad commissions of those states through which a particular railroad sys-
 tenn runs. the right to be heard before the | interstate commerce commission as to
 whether the railroad in question should be allowed to make an improvement or an extension in any one of the states in
 which it operates
 l These are the drastic provisions of the
 measure to which Senator Vests cor
 respondent takes exception upon the
 ground that the effect of them will be to
 retard. if not prohibit, railroad and trans portation development where it is most
 needed-in the southern states.
 | Under the terms of the act of the bill as
 it now stands, if any railroad operating
 in the south desired to build an extension out to a new factory or to newly
 opened mine or into a growing and pros porous agricultural section, it would first
 have to apply to the interstate commerce
 commission for permission to enter into | liiiS tAptuSt UT to iHsdt ti' n'''HFeaiy y securities for that purpose.
 The interstate commerce commission would then have to notify each of the | railroad commissions of the state in | which the railroad desiring to make the
 extension, operated. Thus, in the case | of the Southern railroad, Virginia would | have the right to object to its building
 a l0-mle extension to Alabama coal
 mine; North Carolina might set up seri-
 ons opposition to the Atlantic Coast | Lines construction of a short extension to Georgia tuipentine tract; South Car olina might undertake to say that the Seaboard Air Line should not be allowed to build a track into a prosperous Flori- da truck growing section.
 When it comes to a question of building
 competing lines wholely within one state
 influences of other railroads might bring
 about such objections from the railroad l commissions of states not even con
 cerned in the matter as would defeal
 such construction altogether.
 Senator Vests correspondent calls at
 tention to the delays which would be in.