The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-06-24
NEA Service Writer

 volving billions of dollars, the inter- state commerce commission has gone through its A years of existence without ever a hint of scandal touching one of it's members.
 Individual commissioners have been accused of bad judgment or prejudice. Wall street bankers have protested restrictions on railroad se- curities. Farmers have complained that the railroads were granted rates too high. Railroads, naturally, have sometimes been dissatisfied. But no member has ever been charged with corruption or ulterior motives.
 Aside from integrity, most of the commissioners are high-grade men of experience and ability. They have to be in order to deal with the vastly complex and variegated cases which come before them. Both in mental capacity and erudition in their field that II members are com parable to those of the supreme court.
 Lawyers PredOminate
 Little of the criticism, conse- quently, that has been hurled at such other regulatory bodies as the power and tariff commissions has fallen the way of the I. c. c. Its decisions have generally been re- garded as impartial. Although some of its members are considered more liberal than others, decisions in cases where the public interest seemed to conflict with that of the carriers have not caused it to be regarded as having liberal or conservative majority as in the case of the supreme court. You can't ever tell just how the I. c. C.. is going to swing and often mem bers who seemed to be liberals last time will appear to be arch-con- servatives the next.
 Lawyers have predominated on the commission in the past and a half dozen lawyers are members now. A couple of them have been judges. Four have served on state regulatory commissions. Another worked his way up through the ranks of railroad labor and the commission staff. The average com- missioner's age is about 56.
 The chairmanship rotates from year to year and is now held by Ezra Brainerd, Jr, who came out of Vermont and was admitted to the bars of Michigan, Vermont and the Indian Territory now called Oklahoma in the same year. He was an active lawyer and banker in Muskogee, Okla, at the time President Coolidge appointed him to the I. c. c. in 1927.
 Youngest Member is AZ Commissioner Charles D. Mahaf- | fife, youngest of the lot at 47, was Rhodes scholar and finished post graduate work at Oxford in 1908. | He taught jurisprudence at Prince ton, practiced law in Portland, Ore, where he also served on the state | conservation commission, and was an attorney here for the interior department and the railroad ad- ministration. He had been several years director of finance for the l. | c. c. when appointed a member of the commission.
 Most often quoted by liberals and distinguished for the force and | clarity of frequent dissenting opin- ions much as are Justice Brandeis and Holmes is Commissioner Jo- seph B. Eastman, the son of a Pres byterian minister and a graduate or | Amherst now only 49 years old al- though Wilson first appointed him to the I. c. c. in 1918. Eastman was the moving force in the Public Franchise league of Boston for many years. then counsel for street railway employees and finally a member of the Massachusetts public service commission at the time of his appointment to. the commission Eastman has sometimes been at' tackled by railroad organs as an ad- vocate of public ownership. He is on record as saying:
 "As a policy for future applica' ton to new enterprises the argu' ments in favor of public ownershiI seem to me not only persuasive bu convincing. But the policy or pup lie ownership and operation mus await gradual development"
 Up From the Ranks
 Frank McManamy often votei with Eastman but is sometime found sharply opposed to him. Me Manamy was n locomotive hremni and engineer on the Pere Mnrquett' for nearly 10 years. then an instruc tor in air.brake and locomotive practice for the International Cor resp0ndence Schools. He served the 1. C. c. as inspector Of safet' appliance and chief inspector o locomotives from 1908 Co 1913 nns was assistant director of operation ' for the q. \. raiiroad adminlstri