The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-18
INCONSISTENCY IN REPORT OF l. 6. COMMITTEE Saunders of Louisiana, At tacks haiiroad Bill
 in House GOVERNMENT WILL. kECEIVEWORST DEAL Must Pay Debts In Cash While aailroads Settle
 With i otes

Washington, D. C., Nov. 1S.-After
 six months of work, the House In
 terstate Commerce Committee has re-
 ported out 8 railroad bill that is as
 full ofz tnconsist tencies as sieve is
 full of holes in the opinion of Repre-
 sentative Jared Y. Sanders, former
 governor of Louisiana.
 The bill, which was called up in
 the House this week, was attacked
 tor its many inconsis istencies in a
 speech on the floor of the House by
 MT. Sanders, who pointed out mum
 erous reasons why it will utterly fail
 to solve the railroad problem, with
 which the Republican controlled com
 mittee has now been wrestling for
 half & year.
 The bill before the House, known as the Esch bill. / contains, among
 other things, 8 provision that when the roads are turned back to their
 owners and the time for settlement arrives, whatever the government
 may owe the roads must be paid in cash, but if the reads owe the gov ernment anything, the latter must take their notes for ten years for it.
 The bill that comes before you," said MT. Sanders in his speech attack l ing this feature of the bill. known as SAAO AAO114tl dL1SuUllVIL, SLT1ppeQ or 1 its verbiage, laid bare of technical i phrases, means that when we come to l 8 settlement with the railroads we ] must pay them on the nail dollar for 1 dollar, whatever we owe them, but we i cannot say to the railroads, we owe I, you $50,000.000 but you owe us $3O,-i 100000 and we will pay you $2O,000,- o00.' If you pass this bill, they say you must pay the s50,000, ,000O,' and i the railroads will then be able to say, | after while we will get together l and we will figure on the s30, ,Ooo, 900, and then we will give you our note l for it, and If you can collect it if the l property is solvent Why, it does not 1 even prescribe In this bill that the | amount that IS owed to the govern ment shall be first mortgage. You throw sop to public opinion by stat Ing that it shall be a frst-mortgage wherever practical
 "lf have a mans cash in my posi- session and he sues me for a settle ment, l am going to say Yes, owe you $500, but you owe me $500, and we will settle on that basis, and I will plead my compensation and set-offs' There is not 8 man in the union who cannot do that today, and the only thing in all America, the only person, real or natural, who cannot take ad- vantage of that law will be the gov ernment of the United States if YOU pass this bill. You will pay the rail- roads dollar for dollar. cash on the nail what you owe them and you will take their obligations for what they owe you.''
 Another feature of the bill against which MT. Sanders protested is that known as the standard return" pro- vision "a Tt sJ [ the investment to the roads for a period of six months after the pass age of the act. Under the provisions Of this bill the road that makes more man the guaranteed standard return may place the excess in its treasury. but the poorer road, the railroad that does not make the standard return. may present its voucher to the Gov ernment which will make up its loss.
 Can you beat it?" asked MT. San ders. Gan you justify it? Here is a railroad that makes 80 per cent That is fine business. They take that and put 1t in their pockets Here Is an- other that makes less than the stand ard return, and we say that Is al right; we will make it up out of the pockets of our tax-payers' What I contended for in the committee and what I contend for here is that if yo11 are going to project this standard re- turn for six months after the pass age of~this act, there is but one fair and just way of doing 1t. Do not ex- empf the prosperous and take in only rhe poor. Take them all in for six months, just as you did under the Federal Control act. Let the govern ment get the advantage of what inc T1ch roads are going to make. as the government will have to make up the oefic1t of the poor road. There is not 8 line in the provisions that I have discussed that is placed there for the benefit of anybody in the world ex- cept the great transportation systems of America.
 And If the bill becomes a law. vo11 put the transportation facilities of America forever under the donfna ton of these great railroads As\far as am concerned, I never will vote Tor bill I am honestly and sincerely convinced means that and nothing but that. Transportation is the great est question we have to solve We must solve it; we will solve it some