THE ROLL CALL
THE ROLL CALL I ON MEN AND MEASURES Prodding the Elephant THE ELEPHANT is the prize "thriller" of the circus, the fascinating terror of the zoo. Greatest of all is the big elephant, the bad...
...Hale) to lay on the table the amendment proposed by the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr...
...There is, in our opinion, urgent' need op a physical valuation of the interstate railways op this country...
...The American Congressional elephant is the great incorrigible of the age...
...Car-mack) , who is absent...
...As time passed, however, the act came before the courts for construction...
...On that I ask for the yeas and nays...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has prodded Congress repeatedly in behalf of a physical valuation of railroads...
...The present report of the Interstate Commerce Commission demands this measure in terms so strong, so broad and emphatic, that Congress ought at last to respond...
...While President Taft failed to recommend it in his message to Congress, there is no reason to believe that he has abandoned his convictions as to its wisdom and necessity...
...The estimates of the latter year exceed the estimates for 1907 by over 25 per cent...
...As he grows older, he grows uglier...
...Public...
...HALE...
...President Roosevelt endorsed the proposition...
...In recent years, afflicted with the twin malignancy of Aldrichism and Cannonism, he has become worse than ever...
...Money Smoot Beveridge Daniel Morgan Spooner Burrows Depew Patterson Stone Burton Gorman Pettus Warren Carmack Heyburn Proctor Clapp Martin Rayner So the amendment was laid on the table...
...He is constantly trampling on his keeper, Mr...
...Closely connected with the question of reasonable railway rates stands the question of reasonable railway taxation...
...The question is on agreeing to the motion of the Senator from Maine (Mr...
...The few who dispute it must be overwhelmed by the economic soundness of the principle and the weight of judicial authority by which it is decreed...
...The courts, examining it critically and construing it strictly, found that it did not confer such-authority...
...For the helpers and prodders, the elephant has a deep-seated hatred...
...He is a menace to the lives of the helpers and prodders who try to compel him to tractability and decent behavior...
...In the trial of pending suits brought by the above companies to enjoin certain rates upon lumber which the Commission had established from the Pacific coast to eastern destinations, these same engineers have again estimated the cost of reproduction in 1909...
...The folly and absurdity of legislating that railroad rates shall be just and reasonable, without providing, as a necessary corollary, legislative authorization for a valuation of railroad property in order that the justness and reasonableness of the rates may be determined, is so apparent as to need no argument...
...If he were present I would vote "yea...
...Gallinger McCumber Sutherland Grane Hale McEnery Wetmore Nays—27...
...In the so-called "Spokane case" the engineers of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railways estimated the cost of reproducing those properties in the spring of 1907...
...Everybody, in short, except the railroads and the "System" and their representatives in Congress, is for it...
...It was discovered that the elephant had, after all, not been as tractable as he had been crafty...
...Greatest of all is the big elephant, the bad elephant, the dangerous and incorrigible elephant who kills his keepers...
...I am paired with that Senator...
...The public understands the necessity for it and demands action...
...The roll call was concluded...
...The elephant does not love his keeper, but when the keeper gets after him in a way that means business, he can sometimes exact obedience through fear...
...but we deem it our duty to keep this matter before the Congress by restating the recommendations themselves...
...In its annual report for 1903 the Commission gave extended consideration to this matter...
...IT is up to you to "prod the elephant...
...The Supreme Court of the United States held, a generation ago before there was any interstate commerce act, that under the common law it was the duty of public carriers for hire to charge no more for their services than is necessary to pay operating expenses and a fair return upon the fair value of their property used for the public convenience...
...Even assuming that the valuation of our railways would be of no assistance to ttiis Commission in establishing reasonable rates, it is still necessary, if those rates are to be successfully defended when attacked by the carriers, that some means be furnished by which, within reasonable limits, a value can be established which shall be binding upon the courts and the Commission...
...Public, but without great effect so far as the elephant is concerned, except to irritate his tough old hide...
...Acting under this authority and the duty which it imposes, the Commission, in its annual report to Congress, just published, again takes up the "prod" and wields it upon the stubborn carcass of the elephant to the following import: "Amendment* to the Act "The experience of the past year confirms our conviction that certain amendments are necessary to enable the Commission to more fully accomplish the purposes of the act...
...Circus posters scream his terrible deeds in great red letters, and, at the zoo, the great high double fences of iron inspire awe and dread of his hulking power...
...He has not...
...When the law was passed, the people and some of those in Congress who' participated in its enactment, as well as the Commission established under its provisions, thought that the act conferred such authority in some substantial degree upon the Commission...
...The necessity and the reasans for the measure were fully explained...
...ALLISON...
...The yeas and nays were ordered...
...Public, whose personal attention is required to persuade the elephant to move forward...
...There is no way by which the Government can properly meet this testimony...
...When the railroad rate bill of 1906 was pending in the Senate, an amendment was offered to provide for the valuation of railway property...
...Congress respects it little and fears it none...
...This is not the first time that the Interstate Commerce Commission has prodded Congress to provide by legislation for a physical valuation of railroads, nor the first time that the Commission has advanced arguments which should be controlling for such legislative action...
...The Commission then said: "There are two leading reasons why an authoritative valuation of railroad property is of increasing importance...
...No tribunal upon which the duty may be imposed, whether legislative, administrative, or judicial, can pass a satisfactory judgment upon the reasonableness of railway rates without taking into account the value of railway property...
...Has the senior Senator from Alabama (Mr...
...ALLISON...
...The-gross overcapitalization of the railways of the country was analyzed...
...Most of these amendments have been referred to in previous reports, and it seems unnecessary to repeat at this time the reasons upon which our recommendations are based...
...Driven by a storm of public sentiment that would not abate, Congress in 1887 passed the Interstate Commerce Act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission with the ostensible purpose and authority to regulate railroads and to secure "just and reasonable" railroad rates...
...It is the elephant's keeper, Mr...
...Another reason for such a valuation is scarcely less important...
...However, there was one vital and more or less useful clause which had not been taken out of the law before its passage...
...The public means you...
...If our benevolent Uncle Sam were to go into the circus poster business he could easily outdo all the zoos, and circuses put together...
...The VICE-PRESIDENT...
...If I were at liberty to vote I should vote "yea...
...In the first place, the judicial rules for the determination of reasonable rates for freight and passenger traffic, so far as those rules have been laid down in the decisions of the courts, include and lay stress upon the fair value of the roads whose rates are the subject of complaint...
...and the Secretary proceeded to call the roll...
...The result was announced—yeas 40, nays 27, as follows: Aldrich Cullom Hansbrough Millard Alger Dick Hemenway Nelson Allee Dillingham Hopkins Nixon Ankeny Dryden Kean Penrose Brandegee Flint Kittredge Perkins Bulkeley Foraker Knox Piles Bnrnham Frye Lodge Piatt Carter Fulton Long Scott Clark, Wyo...
...La Follette...
...SPOONER (when his name was called...
...I again announce my pair with the Senator from Tennessee (Mr...
...That was the provision which authorized the Commission created by it to make recommendations to Congress from time to time for its amendment—authority to prod the elephant...
...The VICE-PRESIDENT...
...Their extortion from the public, through excessive transportation charges, of hundreds of millions of dollars annually was demonstrated...
...Morgan) voted...
...I move to lay the amendment on the table...
...By the end of a decade, the Commission, under the law and decisions of the courts, was reduced to a tribunal empowered only to make investigations and findings and recommendations...
...President Taft advocated it in his speech accepting the Republican nomination for President, and advocated it later in his campaign for election...
...It js up to you to support the interstate commerce commission in its recommendations in your interest...
...When the amendment was offered, the following record was made in the Senate: Mr...
...Frazier Mallory Warner Clay Gamble Newlands Not Voting—22...
...HALE...
...Bacon Culberson Gearin Overman Bailey Dolliver La Follette Simmons Berry Dubois Latimer Taliaferro Blackburn Elkins McCreary Teller Burkett Foster McLaurin Tillman Clarke, Ark...
...But the Interstate Commerce Commission is only a "helper...
...Up to the present, the "System's" representatives in Congress have been able to defeat railway rate regulation in the public interest and to preserve practically intact the "System's" railroad graft...
...Allison Clark, Mont...
...IT is up to you to write your senators and congressmen, to urge upon your neighbors the necessity of making their interests felt...
...This renewed prodding of Congress by the Interstate Commerce Commission is timely...
...This prod the Commission has from time to time, and with some industry, wielded and applied to the gratification of the keeper, Mr...
...Both legally and economically this principle must be accepted as established, if not everywhere admitted...
...All efforts since repeated have failed to get this measure before the Senate for fair consideration...
Vol. 1 • January 1910 • No. 52
