REPUBLICAN REFORM RETROGRADING (CONTINUED)
Chandler, William E.
REPUBLICAN REFORM RETROGRADING ( Continued.) Travellers and Shippers Must be Given Same Rights as the Railroads when Rates are Contested Before the Interstate Commission. Railroads Now Have the...
...The bill remained in the Committee from December 4, 1907, until January 6, 1909, when Senator Elkins, Chairman, reported it adversely...
...but they make a specimen railroad fortress against popular rights...
...There is no good reason for the existing discrimination except that in every contest between railroads and the public every possible obstruction is to be put in the way of the public and every possible advantage given to the railroads which human ingenuity can devise and the money power can secure and maintain...
...In the Congressional Record of March 23, 1906, Vol...
...The Committee says that Mr...
...Once upon a time when it had been settled by his Committee that a bill should be drafted more rigidly punishing rebates and discriminations the Chairman entrusted the railroads with the formal work of drafting the bill which came to be known as the Elkins Act of February 19, 1903...
...I have not heard of anybody objecting to it...
...2d Session...
...Tillman Strikes First Blow SENATOR TILLMAN first put before the Senate the proposition that the people should be allowed to prevent the raising of established rates if the railroads could prevent the lowering of rates—pending an investigation of the merits of any change proposed...
...7. They say that in some supposed case a shipper who could suspend the raising of a rate would have an opportunity for fraud,—would be tempted through cupidity to obtain a discrimination in his favor against another shipper...
...9. The report refers to the letter written from the office of the Interstate Commerce Commission on January 29, 1908, in which is referred to a prior opinion...
...Meantime the railroad disobeys the order and enforces its own high rates...
...This report contains twenty-two closely printed pages and recommends the indefinite postponement of Mr...
...The travellers and shippers ask the Commission to arrest the raising until (after an investigation, a final decision by the Commission and a lawsuit, if one happens) it is shown that the raising of the rates is just and reasonable...
...933 of February 8, 1909, which undertakes to demonstrate the justice of allowing the railroads to raise existing rates but giving the public no remedy for extortionate rates until after they have paid the money and gone to law to get relief, while also inviting the railroads to prevent any lowering of rates by order of the Commission until the end of lawsuits...
...Is this Fair to the Public...
...If travellers and shippers want to get an extortionate rate reduced they must seek and convince the Commission and get its order and also, it seems, must fight a lawsuit in court in order to obtain the reduction—meantime they must pay the fares and freights...
...The Fulton proposition was that at any time prior to the expiration of the notice required by law to be given of a proposed increase of rates, fares or charges— "Any shipper or any number of shippers, jointly or severally, may file with the Commission a protest in writing against the proposed increase in whole or in part, stating succinctly the grounds of his or their objections to the proposed change...
...By existing law railroad rates of fares and freights must be posted and made public and there can be no changes except at the end of a known period...
...but when so simple a protection is asked by the public as authority to the Commission to forbid the railroads from raising their rates while the reasonableness of the increase is contested an outcry of indignation is set up by the railroad lawyers and sustained by the lawmakers...
...423 having been referred to the Interstate Commerce Committee an amendment was offered in the Committee— "leaving it to the discretion of the Interstate Commerce Commission to determine whether the schedule filed should go into effect at the end of thirty days or should be suspended by order of the Commission until after final hearing upon the question as to whether the advance was reasonable...
...The lawmakers of the land, through Senator Elkins, refuse to grant the request of the travellers and shippers...
...Therefore it should let rates be raised, made exorbitant, and collected...
...40, part 5, page 4166, the Tillman amendment is given as follows: "Whenever any complaint is made against any carrier or carriers in accordance with section 15 as amended by this act concerning rates or charges which have been established and published by the carrier or carriers and which raise the rates then existing so as to provide greater compensation for transportation than the rates or charges which may at the time be enforced, but which rates so raised have not at the time of the filing of the complaint gone into effect, it shall be the duty of the Commission upon motion of the complainant to make an order forbidding the carrier or carriers to put in force the rates so raised, and requiring the carrier or carriers to continue to charge and collect no more than the existing rates during the pendency of such complaint before the Commission...
...Over and over again in the committee on Interstate Commerce and here in the Senate over and over again that identical point has been urged...
...Senate Report, 933, 60th Cong...
...Knapp's reasons are good for what he says ought not to be done but bad for what he says ought to be done and therefore that the Fulton proposition as amended, and recommended by the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be indefinitely postponed...
...The Situation Stated T HERE are existing railroad rates which must be paid or the * travellers cannot ride or the shippers get their freight carried...
...Fate of Fulton Bill ONE year and a half elapsed and on December 4, 1907, it was again presented to the Senate by Senator Fulton of Oregon in Senate Bill No...
...Imprisonment was, however, re-enacted as a punishment in the Act of June 29, 1906, on motion of Senator Lodge...
...Case II...
...This Fulton Bill No...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission should have the same powers in either case, (1) to prevent raising and (2) to compel reductions ; and the lawsuits should come afterwards...
...The Senator from West Virginia did, I KNOW...
...See Senator Elkins7 Report from the Interstate Commerce Committee, February 8, 1909, No...
...When they go, there is no possible way to prevent the railroads from setting up any claim they choose of injustice, unreasonableness or unconstitutionality...
...These nine reasons are some of them unintelligible, none of them ingenious, all insufficient...
...There is no objection to that...
...Always should it be borne in mind that there is not the slightest reason for any mention of any court in any law for endeavoring to get reasonable rates for the public...
...423 to amend Section 6 of the Interstate Commerce Act...
...The filing of such protest shall operate to continue in force the then existing rate or rates, fare or fares, charge or charges proposed to be changed and protested against as aforesaid, until the reasonableness of the rate or rates, fare or fares, charge or charges proposed to be substituted shall have been determined by the Commission...
...Chairman Knapp is opposed to allowing one shipper as a matter of right to suspend the raising of a rate but is in favor of a law giving the Commission power to suspend it upon application of a shipper...
...The railroad considers certain rates to be too low, and gives notice that they are to be raised...
...FORAKER...
...Elkins Too Confiding IT HAS been unfortunate for the country that Senator Elkins is a statesman with a nature too confiding...
...2. The report says the committee is afraid that the bill would be held to be unconstitutional as depriving the carrier of his property without due process of law;—of an indefeasible right to raise rates and charge and collect what he pleases up to the time when he may be restrained by the formal judgment of a court...
...IS THIS a just situation...
...6. They say that it would be a very troublesome question for the Commission to consider one rate of charges without considering all charges—there being a necessary inter-relation of all rates...
...4. The Committee is also afraid that stopping the raising of a rate would deprive the carrier of his right under Section 6 of the Act of June 29, 1906, of bringing a bill in equity to make void an insufficient rate;—afraid that the court would not act...
...This supposedly beneficial act therefore was found to contain the celebrated provision abolishing imprisonment as a punishment and leaving only fines to be enforced...
...If they get an order for relief, the' railroads can disobey it and the sufferers must go to the courts...
...With continued and innocent trustfulness in the capacity and impartiality of the railroad lawyers it must be concluded that Senator Elkins entrusted to them the drafting of his report No...
...The Committee also are made to say that they have fears that if they attempted to enact the restriction asked for the whole sixth section of the law would be held to be void...
...3. They are also afraid that if under the amendment the Commission found the raising to be unreasonable and stopped it, it would thereby give away its power under the 15th section to fix a reasonable rate...
...Fulton's bill together with the amendment offered thereto...
...Case I. The travellers and shippers consider certain rates to be exorbitant and ask the Interstate Commerce Commission to lower them and the Commission after investigation orders the reduction...
...5. Proceeding to practical objections, the Committee says that if a final decision were in favor of the railroad it would lose a large sum of money during the delay—having also maintained a large force of attorneys...
...CONGRESS must give travellers and shippers the same legal right to prevent the raising of rates which the railroad companies have to prevent the reduction of rates...
...The railroads had used the 13 months most diligently as Senator Elkins' report of February 8, 1909, shows...
...If the railroads can prevent the lowering of a rate by the Commission and force the complainants to a law suit, seeking a far-off remedy, should not the travellers and shippers be allowed to prevent the raising of a rate if they choose to go to the Commission and begin a lawsuit...
...Railroads Now Have the Advantage By WILLIAM E. CHANDLER Ex-United States Senator from New Hampshire...
...If the railroads want to raise a rate because it is too low they need only give notice of their decision and having done so they can proceed to collect the increased rate and the travellers and shippers must pay it or they cannot ride on the cars or get their freight carried...
...The briefest possible synopsis of the argument for the railroads and against the public is as follows: 1. First the report says that the bill would encourage shippers to present protests prepared by skillful attorneys which might lead the Commission to suspend the raising of the rates, notwithstanding it should be considered that traffic officials would not be likely to advance rates without they believed there were sufficient reasons therefor...
...2d Sess...
...Senator Tillman did not urge his proposed amendment at this session and the bill passed without it on June 29, 1906...
...Such inequality of treatment is atrocity...
...933, 60th Cong...
...I. The law of the land has specifically granted the railroad request...
...After paying they may go to law and thereby get their money back if they can...
...As to four different processes in court the railroads are protected by statutes ad nauseam...
...To give the railroads the power to arrest the lowering of rates while withholding from travellers and shippers the power to prevent the raising of rates is one of the chief and most dangerous demands of the re-actionists...
...Meantime the railroads grow rich in making use of it...
...This is Republican Reform Retrograding which even Senator Foraker does not approve...
...8. They say that the power to prevent the raising of rates would lead to a rigid tariff of rates, with no elasticity or flexibility of rates such as the public interest requires—so that if a carrier could not raise rates when he ought not to, he would not lower them when he ought to do so...
...Senator Tillman argued in favor of this provision and among other things said: "If it is proper to provide in this bill that the order of the Commission shall not go into effect, if a judge sees proper to enjoin it, why will it not be proper to place in the bill a provision which will forbid the railroads from raising any rate pendente liter "MR...
...The railroads can make and collect what fares and freight charges they please and travellers and shippers must pay...
...The Senator himself REMINDS ME OF IT...
...The railroad has asked the right to get a court to suspend the order of reduction until the end of a lawsuit over the question whether the reduction is just and reasonable...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 29
