The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-01
PROFESSION VERSUS PRACTICE

| fhOF EOSION NCnoOO TRANlINE
 The general support by The Age-Her- aid of the program now sponsored by Governor Brandon and General Sibert, the chairman of the State Docks Com mission, for separation of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad from control of the Southern Railway has prompted a letter from MT. Lincoln Green, which The Age Herald publishes with pleasure in its Peoples Forum of this morning. If the investment of millions of dollars of the | taxpayers money in seaport terminals at Mobile is to be validated, and if the venture is to reach that ultimate sue cess contemplated by its promoters for the public benefit, it is inevitable that such success will come in great part from cooperation with the railroads and primarily from a railroad whose inter- ests are centered in the port of Mobile. For that reason the Mobile & Ohio Rail- road now used by the Southern under lease should not be grouped with the Southern, but should be grouped so as to let it serve as Gulf outlet for one of the great grain roads of the Middle West.
 The history of the effort to advance the interests of the port of Mobile, both for the removal of discrimination and the development of terminals, offers in disputable proof that the Southern op- no enlargement of their own terminals, and officially shown to discriminate against public or private terminals not under their control, the effect on the port of Mobile, such conditions uncor- rected, would have been the limiting of the commerce flowing through the port of Mobile to the capacity of the ter minals controlled by the Southern Rail way. The attitude of injured innocence reflected by MT. Green in his letter to The Age-Herald is apparently designed to mislead the people, or to confuse them, or to cover up some new point of attack upon the seaport at Mobile. The letter prompts recollection of the saying of that Indiana philosopher, Abe Mar tin, that any man over forty years old can wear coat with belt in the back, but he fools nobody but himself. The attitude of the Southern Railway towards reflected by MT. Fairfax Harrison, the president of the Southern, when in a speech at Meridian, Mississippi, he said that the Southern is chiefly interested in business moving between the East and Southwest, while the Mobile & Ohio's chief interest is in business nov ing between the Gulf ports and the Northwest" Having acquired the New Orleans & Northeastern, the Southern could therefore dispose of the Mobile & Ohio. It was prima facie proof that the acquisition by the Southern of the ter minal situation in New Orleans gave them the outlet they desired and the out let they would favor.
 That the Mobile & Ohio and the South ern did discriminate against the port of Mobile is not subject to argument, for it is of official record by the Interstate Commerce Commission. One decision, NO" 4SASJ l. Ss Os I0pOTIS1 OIuSISu
 "The carriers defendant shall not dis criminate in extending delivery at ship side rates at the port of Mobile on traf- fife moving over their wharves when des- tined to one water line or another. . . The carriers defendant shall cease to dis criminate in the issuance by their agents of so-called through bills of lading on export traffic moving at their shipside rates. We do not say that the carriers defendant shall issue through bills of lading of the character herein described in the name of all ships or steamship companies, but that the service they give to the shipper in the interior who uses one line of ships from the port shall be given to another shipper who wishes to use a different line of ships, pro- vided both lines of ships submit to the same reasonable conditions imposed by the rail carrier"
 Again, the decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Mobile Cotton Case, the Southern Railway be- ing defendant, No. 5899, I. c. c. re- ports, said:
 "It is the conclusion of the commis- sion, from a consideration of the cir cumstances presented, that the adjust ment of these export cotton rates from points of origin to Mobile are unjustly discriminatory to the prejudice of that port as compared to the respective rates to the port of Savannah, and the defend ants who participate in these rates will be required to readjust them, eliminating the discrimination here found to exist"
 Refutation of MT. Greens letter could be made in detail if required. It is The Age-Herald's opinion that the letter falls by it's own assertions when con- fronted with the records The claim that the shipping at present operating | AE-L Ll. As