Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-04-10
4 n odd prank of fate" which
~ somehow or other seems to

4 ~ ouu pIdllh VI ldle, WHICH
~ somehow or other seems to
be always up to something
prankish, now appears in the fact
that Walker Downer Hines, attorney
for railroads and their defender
| against Government control, should
now be serving the Government as
Director-General of Railways. And
it is The Nations Business that
points out this surprizing somer-
, sault. AS railroad counsel and Off
cial, says a writer in this periodical.
He opposes rates named by the
Interstate Commerce Commission.
He opposed any more railroad legis-
lation at all. He declared himself
against Government ownership, say
ing that it would cause delay in
getting action from political or Gov
ernment railway managers. Now
he is Government manager of near
ly all our roads and. runs the job
beneath the roof of the Interstate
Commerce Building!
The somersaulting here obviously
was done by the, situation and not
/ by Mr.. Hines. 1t all goes to show
what a war can do to a country
when it tries. 1t has set Mr.. Hines
to solve a problem more vast and
battling than any railroad man has
ever faced before. And now he is
at it at least ten hours every day
absorbed"
1t was while acting as counsel for
the Louisville & Nashville Railroad
ed the opportunity that brought him
forward. The railroad came into
conflict with the Interstate Com
merce Law; and in consequence Mr..
Hines mastered the intricacies of
that statute with a thoroughness
that led to his call to New York
as counsel for the Atchison, Topeka
& Santa Fe Railway Company and
to his subsequent prominence in rail-
road affairs. Thus we read:
"In the last fifteen years. Walker
Hines has been appearing in the
highest courts of this country argu-
ing intricate railroad issues, several
times summing up before the Su-
preme Court in masterful fashion
the labors of batteries of other legal
| celebrities His brief in the Mime
sofa and North Carolina rate case
of 1908 is one of the finest ever
written. Before the Interstate Com
merce Commission he represented
the anthra cite carriers in the coal
rate Investigations. the Santa Fe in
the famous Five Per Cent Case, the
New Haven stockholders in the Com
missions Investigations of that road.
He has pleaded for all our ex-
press companies united against re-
ducing their rates. In all these his
toric conflicts Mr.. Hines displayed
that modern legal eloquence which
is overwhelmingly effective by rea-
son of its very simplicity and direct
ness.
From his seventh year, when he
made his first dollar selling tomatoes
for his mother, to his sixteenth year,
when he became a shorthand re-
| porter. in the circuit court of his
State, to his twenty-third year, when
he finished a university law course
in one year, to his thirty-first year,
when he was appointed First Vice
President of the Louisville & Nash
vile, he has always exhibited the
same conscientious devotion to his
duty, the same exhaustive thorough
ness. He has a natural endowment
of genius in precocious mind: but
the real secret of his wizardry in
bringing order out of the chaos of
| thought is his method of studiously
exploring any problem to it's depths
before attempting an answer. His
zeal for getting facts first hand has
oiten appalled, men or lesser reSolu-
ton. AS one of his closest friends
declares: When Walker Hines quits
a subject, it's finished.
Mr.. Hines was born in Russellville.
Kentucky, February 2, 1870, and his
chief regret is, we learn, that he was
not born on a farm. Says the arti-
Gle further:
Nobody here remembers having
seen Walker Hines play games,
am told in a letter received from an
old friend of the Director-General
still living in the Kentucky town
where his boyhood was spent. He
was a youth without humorous epi-
sodes. He was always very studious.
He was devoted to his little sister
and worshiped his widowed mother
who was model Southern woman
and one of the very finest women
God ever made.
And yet Walker Hines. take him
| the year around, is one of the most
normal American men of business.
He has an ideal home life with a
wife and daughter of sixteen. He
takes long walks when he can. On
| his vacation he rides horse, sails a
boat, or starts out in pursuit of
] one Of those pestiferous golf-baIIs.