STATE CONTROL OVER UTILITIES BROKEN DOWN
STATE CONTROL OVER UTILITIES BROKEN DOWN Kansas Executive Deplores Failure of Regulation by State Bodies Governor Reed was formerly chairman and an active member of the Public Service Commission...
...This is why attempted regulation by the state has failed, and will fail until the Supreme Court of the United Stater, is brought back to first principles—principles followed by that court in the first century of our existence...
...He appeared before the National Convention of Railroad and Utilities Commissioners at Glacier Park, Montana, last fall and spoke on the present status of utility regulation in the United States.—Editor's Note...
...The growth of financial feudalism is a contemporary manifestation, but Is here and is causing increasing concern among thoughtful people...
...Steady encroachment ">y the national government, partly by congressional enactment but largely by judicial decisions, is having tile effect of robbing the states of not only their power but their strength and causes apprehension to arise in the minds of thoughtful people...
...The official responsibility delegated by the people of their states to their commissions Is the regulation of rates and service rendered by public utility-corporations, Including common carriers...
...The great vested interests, having been able to get the Supreme Court of the United States to reverse its policy of 100 year's, have been able to hold it to that course...
...The Supreme Court of the United States had appeared to think so for a hundred years, so the legislatures went ahead to serve the public interest, according to their best light, in the decade following 1900...
...By CLYDE M. REED [Governor of Kansas J That the states have declined in power in the last quarter of a century is undented...
...Laws regulating public utilities were passed unier the belief that the states had something to say about their own business, even though corporations^ and corporate property were Involved...
...And no one can foresee the end or the ultimate effect of this most recent development upon the country...
...Trials in state courts, no matter how able and Impartial, including decisions on appeal by state supreme courts, is not "due process of law" and has no more weight and effect than a preliminary hearing in a misdemeanor case before a justice of the peace...
...to be administered by prefects sent from Washington, and when the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost as that of the departments of France or even so far as that of the counties of England,—on that day the progressive political career of the American people will have uim« to an end, and the hopes that have been built upon It for the future happiness and prosperity...
...John Flske, . the great historian, in his "Critical Period of American History,".wrote as follows: "If the day should ever arlcj (which God forbid) when the people of the different parts of our country shall allow their local affairs...
...I have grave doubts that, under existing conditions it can be called successful in any true sense...
...But not without protest, and dissent, from the liberal and enlightened members of the court itself,—notably Justices Stone, Holmes, and Brandcls...
...But to get back to the failure of state regulation and the main reason therefore,—the federal judiciary.—It Is seen that in most cases the state or the law is not at fault...
...s We all know that ^n the last five years there have grown up great "holding corporations" into whose capacious and rapacious maw has been taken nearly all important public utility companies in the country...
...Much if not most of the cause of this failure lies in the interference with the state power by the federal courts, led by the Supreme Court of the United States...
...STATE CONTROL OVER UTILITIES BROKEN DOWN Kansas Executive Deplores Failure of Regulation by State Bodies Governor Reed was formerly chairman and an active member of the Public Service Commission of Kansas...
...As for myself...
...Our present system of regulation has been in effect and on trial for about 20 years, and if there is anyone who believes that it Is an unqualified success, I have not heard of him...
...Since that time ..e have found that state legislatures, state commissions, and state supreme courts are only weak and futile gestures, and that all power of final decision is lodged in the federal judiciary...
...The Federal Trade Commission Investigation has laid bare the lengths of the unpatriotic, not to say illegal and corrupt, conduct of which some of the great utility companies and their agents and agencies were guilty...
Vol. 1 • February 1930 • No. 9
