THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Rule or Ruin! HONEST competition is the life of honest trade. The suppression of competition is a public wrong. These are established truths. Restraints of trade...
...But that is only a part of the platform declaration on that subject...
...Both party platforms conceded traffic agreements only subject to approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission and with additional safeguards for public interests...
...Mr...
...The bill as reported from the majority of the committee does not comply with the provision of the Republican platform...
...In support of this demand they have advanced two "arguments...
...Mr...
...Ah, but in the protracted debate great stress has been laid upon the messages of President Roosevelt...
...More than this, it was unable to induce the national conventions of either of the two great political parties to concede in their national platforms...
...Defining his position upon this rate question in 1905, President Roosevelt said: " 'As I said in my message of December 6 last, the immediate and most pressing need, so far as legislation is concerned, is the enactment into law of some scheme to secure to the agents of the Government such supervision and regulation of the rates charged by the railroads of the country engaged in interstate traffic as shall summarily and effectively prevent the imposition of unjust or unreasonable rates.' * * * "President Roosevelt says that the first thing to be done is to ascertain whether rates are unjust or unreasonable, and then he adds: " 'In my judgment the most important provision which such law could contain is that conferring upon some competent administrative body the power to decide, upon the case being brought before it, whether a given rate prescribed by a railroad is reasonable and just...
...Aldrich), and the Senator from New York (Mr...
...But the former President made no lop-sided recommendation, in favor of the railroads and against the public interest...
...And to-day at the behest of those who Iv.ive been violating it openly and under cover for years we mu^t iecide whether we will make the first breach in that great statute...
...They have no summary power now...
...That law was intended to apply to railroads and the Supreme Court so construed it...
...La Follette: "As suggested by the Senator from Oklahoma, those smiles may come off...
...Is it unreasonable to suppose that any other form of phrasing of the section which they readily accept amending it, in their judgment, serves the same purpose and will secure the same result...
...President, note what he said in connection with that: " 'The power of the Commission should be made thoroughgoing'— "He did not stop there...
...It is the mdst important of all in this connection...
...President, what was the Republican platform declaration, so often thrust into our faces in this discussion...
...After fearless and able exposure of section 7 by progressive Senators, the System leadership could not get the votes to pass it without such an amendment...
...President, as to suggest to this Senate that they have not covertly been doing that which they could not do openly...
...They spelled it out in their report...
...The following is the roll call: Voting for the Cummins Amendment—29...
...They call first and last for service to the public...
...Senators will do well to heed all that he said on this subject...
...Those who are seeking to repeal the antitrust law ignore the qualifying provision in the platform which immediately follows the words so often quoted...
...Let them beware, for they are certain to be confronted with the following from the same message: " 'But, in my judgment, the necessity for giving this further power is by no means as great as the necessity for giving the commission or administrative body the other powers I have enumerated above...
...Root...
...president, like a guideboard on a highway which all may read, pointing the way the majority of the Committee on Interstate Commerce would lead this body...
...Twenty years ago the Sherman Law made them criminal offenses against the United States...
...ALL OVER THE COUNTRY MEN ARE PLACING DEVOTION TO THE REPUBLIC ABOVE PARTY SOLIDARITY...
...No Congress has ventured heretofore to make an assault upon it...
...The power vested in the Government to put a stop to agreements to the detriment of the public should, in my judgment, be accompanied by power to permit;, under specified conditions and careful supervision, agreements clearly in the interest of the public' "Now follow me just a moment...
...The pending amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota is in violation of that platform...
...I do them the credit to say that...
...But, Mr...
...Crawford...
...rtin * Stone Bristow Dolliver Nelson *Taylor Burkett *Fletcher *Overman ?Chamberlain * Frazier * Paynter Clapp Gamble *Percy Voting against the Cummins Amendment—35...
...But in authorising "good" agreements, adequate provision is demanded for the protection of public interests against the "bad...
...A grave responsibility now confronts the Senate...
...And they were joined and supported by many of the Democrats...
...As to the second argument, it is true that the law, in prohibiting wrongful agreements that restrain trade or monopolize commerce, prohibits agreements having the same effect that are not wrongful, if such can be...
...There is no just reason why it should apply to wrongful restraints of interstate commerce by industrial trusts, and not apply to the same offenses when committed by railroads...
...Burrows * Depew Lodge Smoot Burnham du Pont Nixon Stephenson Burton Elkins Oliver Sutherland Carter Frye Page Warner Clark, Wyo...
...I read it: " 'We believe, however, that the interstate commerce law should be further amended so as to give railroads the right to make and publish traffic agreements, subject to the approval of the commission.' "We have heard that again and again throughout this debate...
...They said: " 'The effect of this provision is to relieve carriers from the prohibition of the antitrust act as affecting agreements of the character referred to.' * * * "So, Mr...
...For the failure to redeem the party promises or to confer any fair privilege upon the railroads or possible benefits upon the public within the purview of those promises, all responsibility must rest upon those who voted to defeat the Cummins amendment...
...I believe that to render that service it must free itself from these influences and from a sinister leadership that has controlled legislation in both branches of Congress...
...President, both parties must be free from these malign influences, otherwise they will be swept aside as no longer worthy servants to the American people...
...They were quick to approve the amendment offered by the senator from south Dakota (Mr...
...Mr...
...They strongly advocate its adoption...
...Section 7 stands out, mr...
...I regret that politics should have been forced into this debate...
...More than this, all the pressure of Railroad-System influence has been unable to force them to concede...
...He never recommended such a provision as section 7, drafted by the Attorney General and reported by this committee...
...Democrats marked *) •Eacon *Clay *Gore *Purcell •Bailey Cummins "Johnson 'Simmons Beveridge *Davis La Follette *Smith, S. C. Borah Dixon * M...
...They have demanded that they be relieved of it...
...President, we have been warned repeatedly on the Republican side that the party platform requires us to relieve carriers from the prohibition of the antitrust law as to traffic agreements...
...I am not so dull, Mr...
...Crawford) does not conform to the platform of the Republican party...
...They came into the Senate with the bold proposition to permit the railroad companies to make agreements affecting rates and schedules without the approval of anybody, to lift from the railroad companies of this country the penalties of the Sherman Act, in so far as the Sherman Act relates to traffic agreements...
...Temporarily, at least, through the efforts of progressive Senators, this betrayal of public interest has been averted...
...And I say to Senators who represent a great constituency dependent upon transportation to distant markets that it is vital to hold fast to every safeguard which the Sherman Act throws around the commerce of the country...
...Crawford...
...And if such can be, the public is willing to allow them to be made and observed...
...There is still some competition at other points, and there is competition everywhere as to services...
...They have been felt here in this Chamber and at the other end of the Capitol and have a deep significance, which must impress every thoughtful mind...
...But, sir, we are admonished that the Republican platform calls upon Republican Members of the Senate to vote for such a provision...
...A few years ago, after there came into the office of Chief Executive of this country a man who did not fear to direct his Department of Justice to enforce it, these great organizations that had been secretly building up in defiance of it began to lay the foundation for the very proposals which are before the Senate today...
...and it may well be inadvisable to attempt to vest this particular power in the commission or other administrative body until it already possesses and is exercising what 1 u^as'.i as by far the most important of all the powers I reeo-iimend—-as, indeed, the vitally important power—that to fix a given maximum rate.' * * * "We are about to determine whether or not we will vote to 'relieve railroads from the prohibition of the anti-trust act affecting traffic agreements.' The anti-trust law stands between the people and these powerful organizations in combination which already menace the markets of the country...
...the party leadership in the senate cares nothing about redeeming the platform pledges...
...Elkins), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr...
...True, Mr...
...President, competition as to rates from principal points has already been destroyed in violation of the antitrust act...
...Rather than accept an honest fulfillment of the platform promises, fair alike to the people and the railroads, that leadership deliberately abandoned the entire proposition...
...Gore : "Those smiles will come off...
...I could not permit this vote to be taken making the first inroad upon this gieat statute, enacted for the protection of the public, without putting on record my word of protest and appeal...
...but, sir, they found trouble in passing this section as reported...
...More than this, honest and informed men do not and can not concede...
...As to the first "argument," the fact that a law is violated is not a reason for its repeal, nor is ^he evidence convincing that the law is so utterly disregarded that it is no restraint upon railroad wrongdoing...
...It was a signal victory for progressivism...
...Aided systematically by the controlled press, the work of making public opinion against the antitrust law has been prosecuted day by day for the better part cf a decade...
...President, just what the railroads want is just what this committee recommends...
...We know that a majority of the committee would pass section 7 just as framed if they could...
...The insistence of railroad managers that it be repealed is strong evidence to the contrary...
...The System control in the Senate is on the defensive...
...The railroads wanted the statute wiped out without any reserve power in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission or elsewhere for the protection of the public, and this committee so reported the bill...
...It is very important to commerce that we should guard all that is left and restore to the public that of which they have been unlawfully deprived, or afford them full relief in other ways...
...But the Cummins amendment was not adopted...
...first, that they make their rates by agreement anyhow in violation of the law, and, second, that the law prohibits not only agreements that would injure the public, but also agreements which would promote efficiency and harmony in the public service of railroads...
...The amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota (Mr...
...but only so much thereof as would subserve the railroads...
...The majority of the Committee on Interstate Commerce want this law repealed as to railroads...
...Is there any doubt about what they have desired ever since that statute was written...
...They came in here without any mask, without any subterfuge, and proposed to sweep aside the Sherman Act altogether, in so far as it prohibits the making of traffic agreements to combine on rates and suppress competition...
...They were called to the bar of justice and convicted...
...What I have to say with respect to the majority of the Committee on Interstate Commerce is said in the hope that it may persuade Senators who yet hesi-tato not to take their advice and their counsel and adopt their suggestions...
...It was their purpose wholly to set aside the Sherman Act, in so far as it prohibits agreements in restraint of trade...
...It does not...
...He did say: " 'The railways of the country should be put completely under the Interstate Commerce Commission and removed from the domain of the anti-trust law.' "But, Mr...
...Let me say, sir, that great changes are coming over the country...
...McEnery • • • First Attempt to Repeal the Anti-Trust Law THE following excerpts are taken frem Senator La Follette's protest in the Senate against the attempt in the commerce court bill to repeal the Sherman Anti-trust Act as applied to railroads: "The issue involved in section 7 and the amendments offered to it are profoundly important...
...He at no time recommended such a provision as that offered by the Senator from South Dakota (Mr...
...By a premise t...
...they demand a free hand...
...They were called to the bar of the court and convicted...
...They want freedom from impending danger...
...As presented to the Senate in section 7 of the commerce bill, drawn perhaps by Attorney General WiCK-ersham, the railroad demand was for a free hand in making traffic agreements, good or bad, without the safeguards insisted upon by Mr...
...Mr...
...He said: " 'The power of the Commission should be made thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise complete supervision and control over the issues of securities, as well as over the raising and lowering of rates.' "And let me say to Senators who are so ready to quote President Roosevelt, when it will serve their purpose, that they ought not to pass lightly his next sentence...
...Crawford) and advocated by the Senator from West Virginia (Mr...
...They will not have summary power until the interstate commerce act is reconstructed...
...I am not mistaken in defining their position...
...In the beginning they violated its provisions with respect to the management of their property...
...They are seeking legislation to relieve them from the penalties of making all the transportation charges through combination...
...they want it under this section, and they want it under another section of this bill, which at another time before the debate upon this measure closes I shall undertake to show has oeen most adroitly framed to secure a legislative construction that shall reach back and lift "the shadow of the penitentiary" from the men who have engaged in criminal practices in violation of this law...
...Roosevelt, by the Interstate Commerce Commission and by the platforms of both parties...
...President, put in the poor apology for public protection contained in the amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota (Mr...
...Sraith, Md...
...He says: '"AS REGARDS RATES, AT LEAST, THIS POWER SHOULD BE SUMMARY.' * » • "Does the Crawford amendment propose to make the power as to rates summary...
...and if it is found to be unreasonable and unjust, then, after full investigation of the complaint, to prescribe the limit of rate beyond which it shall not be lawful to go— the maximum reasonable rate, as it is commonly called—this decision to go intra effect within a reasonable time and to obtain from thence onward, subject to review by the courts...
...I have a high regard for the services of political parties and for their platforms, but I am informed that when the hour came for calling the first meeting of the committee on resolutions in the Republican convention at Chicago there were present the head and front of the greatest trusts and combinations, railroads and otherwise, in this country, and that these men were found in attendance upon the sessions of the Denver convention...
...Elkins), they have been doing violence to this law in THS "shadow of the penitentiary," and they have not been altogether com portable...
...Bradley . Crane Guggenheim Piles Brandegee Crawford Heyburn Root Brown Cullom Jones Scott Bulkeley Curtis Kean Smith, Mich...
...This, be it observed, is the full application of the railroad argument...
...I say that every one of the Senators who votes for section 7 as reported, or for the Crawford amendment, will quote President Roosevelt in defense of his vote...
...The bill as reported is in violation of that platform...
...Restraints of trade and the monopolization of commerce have ever been under the ban of our common law...
...Let me say, Mr...
...Neither would have dared to concede them without this condition...
...it proposes to clothe these railroad companies with authority to file their agreements, and it proposes that the Interstate Commerce Commission be required to pass upon these agreements, without a summary power over the rates...
...Listen to this, coupled with and a part of that which I have just read: 'but maintaining always the principle of competition between naturally competing lines and avoiding the common control of such lines by any means whatsoever'— " 'Maintaining always the principle of competition.' How, sir, will the principle of competition be maintained if railroads are to make agreements as to rates and put them into effect before the Interstate Commerce Commission are given opportunity to investigate and determine that they do not destroy all competition...
...Among them are President ROOSEVELT and the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...withdraw section 7 entirely, they secured enough votes to defeat the Cummins amendment...
...President, is there any doubt about what the railroad* of this country want...
...And because: the railroads care nothing for the right to make these "good" traffic agreements about which they have talked so much...
...But the railroads have chafed under the restraint of the law...
...that they be permitted ts make their rates by agreement...
...Against such a betrayal of the public interest and violation of platform pledges progressive Republicans in the Senate rebelled...
...Extracts have been quoted to show that he strongly favored legislation exempting the railroads from the prohibitions and penalties imposed by the antitrust law...
...President, as I see smiles on the faces of some Senators—" Mr...
...They did not even, Mr...
...I believe that there is great service in the party to which I belong...
...Mr...
...That railroad traffic agreements not injurious to public interests might well, in the interests both of the public and of the railroads, be permitted by law, provided that the agreements be made subject to government approval before being legalized and that the public interest be first safeguarded by the preservation of competition or by thorough-going and summary public rejpt-lation of railroad rates and services, or both, has been conceded by able and honest men...
...President, no more important piece of legislation, fraught with greater responsibility to us and more serious consequences to the public now and in the future, will come to us in all our service as members of this body than that which is presented here to-day...
...Beyond doubt they have in some measure...
...G&llinger Perkins Twenty-eight Senators were recorded as not voting, of whom the following were paired in favor of the Cummins Amendment: Bourne *Foster *Owen *Shively ?Culberson *Hughes *Newlands Taliaferro ?Daniel *Money *Rayner *Tillman The following were paired against the Cummins Amendment: Aldrich Dillingham Lorimer Richardson Briggs Flint McCumber Warren Dick Hale Penrose Wetmore The following, all Democrats, were absent and not paired: ?Bankhead *Clark, Ark...
...The majority of the committee were in perfect accord with the railroads, as shown by the very terms in which they reported this bill...
...Then they violated the statute with respect to traffic agreements, rates, and schedules...
...They want to b« rid of it, not in part, but in so far as it affects them they want to be rid of it altogether...
...To section 7 as demanded by the railroads and insisted upon by the Aldrich machine, Senator Cummins offered an amendment to conform it to the recommendation of the former President and of the Interstate Commerce Commission and to the platforms of both parties...
...Mr...
...For the first time in twenty years Congress is urged to amend the antitrust law...
...The questions involved in the regulation of interstate commerce call for no party divisions...
...THE adoption of the Cummins amendment would have permitted the railroads to make traffic agreements not injurious to public interests and redeemed the party platforms...
...But the demand of the railroads was not limited to the scope of their argument...
...President, we have presented to us to-day the first demand that has come from any administration to break down any of the provisions of that statute...
...Mr, President, we have now come upen a time when this country has an administration ready to stand for that which never before, with any fair prospect of success, could have been attempted in either branch of the Congress L.f the United States...
...Laughter...
...but, nevertheless, as suggested by the plaintive appeal of the Senator from West Virginia (Mr...
Vol. 2 • May 1910 • No. 19
