The Washington herald., 1918-03-09

Efforts OF some Of the adminislTa-
tion's enthusiastic friends have ueel
in the direction of giving to the PrOsi-
dent many powers hitherto held by
men subordinate TO him. and many
powers which are del, gated to Con-
gresS under our Constitution.
But no effort. up to the time the
railroad bill cane up, had been made
to take away ,,OweT from the judicial
or semi judicial branch and give it to
the executive. The railroad measure
proved the exception. The house
actually stood for the presentation to
the President of the function Of rate
making. The House would have lad
the President exercise this absolutely
without restraint, and without any de-
gree of accounting to IhC commission.
This. too. in the face OF the fast
that the Interstate Commerce Com
mission is n quasi-judici 1. body and
its Tate-making power - Similar to
the powers given to CoLrts.
Senator Hollis has been nothing if
not interesting during the past several
days. ON the war finance corporation
hill he has introduced many interest
ing topics into the debate. Some of
them the Senat" had NOT time to paus"
upon-and others. the members knew.
sunk deep into the hearts of many of
their colleagues.
The New Hampshire Senator cut
very deeply when he assailed the COM
mittee rights and actions i'm the Upper
House. and intimated that about all
a faithful old committee would DO.
under the present order, would De 20
settle things in its own way and then
come back to the Senate and stand
for everything the way II had been
shaped in the committee room. he
apparently did not depIore the prac-
tice as much as he explored it-sought
to find reasons why the members of
committee should be estopped from
discussing matter even after COM
mittee action had been taken.
There is something 10 his Contsn-
ton. The discussion on the floor should
be free to all members. Committee
men as well as other members should
give thorough inspection to every
phase of every measure brought ne
fore them-PartiCularly bills of the
enormity Of this measure
The way of the corporation is not
easy. Just listen to these ways IN
which we heard the local street
car companies can and are being beat
en- every day. And this we gathered
in one short trip from one part of the
city to another:
First, fifty fares rung up on trip
on which two business men counted
ninety-tWO people that rode, less Cnan
half a dozen of whom had trdasfers.
Second. forty STRAY" tickets sold
for $1-tickets which had served their
purpose once, but which, of course,
would serve it again.
Third. people who came down town
at noon riding to their roOminS places
and homes at night on transfers OBJ
tained hours before.
And the street car 2OmOany-plain-
ly seen by every citizen to be hauling
enormous loads of people every day
is being castigated by many men as
failing to report all ITS earnings, or
in other ways trying to cover some
of its revenue.
We are of the opinion that if the
traction men could discover" some
way whereby these leaks could be
stopped they would be perfectly will
ing to uncover" all' their actual,
bona-fide earnings.
Hundreds of soldiers have writ
ten or said to members of Congress:
IF anyone tries to tell you that the
sugar ration is brought upon the
nation so that we can have sugar.
don't let them get away until they
tell you where that soldier sugar is
to be had. We have it once a day.
If we're supposed to profit by the
saving we are losing out somewhere
along the line"
We bad not heard that the sugar
shortage was brought on to pro-
vide our men with the article but
if it was it skipped a beat, we
think. What have you heard about
it, gentle reader?
We are brought to with a sudden
hitch and reminded that the old bat
tic of protection against free trade
is 10 be revived in the campaign
of 1918 and again two years hence,
with a violence WHICH may tear old