EDITORIALS
Senator Aldrich's Lofty Candor AFTER Senator Aldrich published his candid and ingenuous reply to the Bristow strictures on his rubber record, the world waited for Bristow's apology. It seemed as if...
...Bristow had already found out, that it is a holding company, with powers to engage in manufacturing if it desires, and controlling an output of from 800,000 to 1,100,000 pounds of crude rubber per month from Mexico alone—and endowed with a huge concession from the late King Leopold in the Congo Basin...
...Nor do we understand that the Commission will undertake to form a judgment upon that question...
...It seemed as if an apology were clearly due...
...He has not taxed himself a single cent in getting it to market...
...Aldrich looked after that—and we want our share of the swag you are thereby empowered to filch from the American people...
...He is under the buyers' feet as is the farmer who takes his hogs to the Beef Trust Stock Yards...
...He is at this moment engaged in making a new central-bank-of-issue-cui rency system for us...
...It is true, he admits, that the manufacturers did not need the increase...
...Then the Rate Bill was pending in Congress...
...Some base natures will harbor the suspicion that the Guggenheim;-Ryan-Rockefeller people who control Mr...
...As it is, the Commission is absolutely without information necessary to enable it to make a determination which shall do justice to the carriers and the public...
...Neither the shippers assert nor the carriers deny that the roads are earning a fair return according to the standard of justice and common sense, which has been affirmed and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court,—the standard OP A FAIR RETURN UPON THE FAIR VALUE OP THE PROPERTY used for the convenience of the public...
...But, of course, all this was without the knowledge of Senator Aldrich...
...Then the Government agreed with the railroads that the Government's suit should be withdrawn if the railroads would withdraw the rate increases until after the new commerce law should be passed...
...We have the power to engage in the manufacture of rubber or to do anything under the sun—look at our charter...
...A thousand times, no...
...Later, statesmen who could not oppose railroad valuation outright, urged the great expense of the undertaking on a large scale, admitting that it might be well to ascertain the value of an individual road here and there, as from time to time the reasonableness of its charges might be called into question...
...We must retain our confidence in the integrity of Senator Aldrich...
...Whereupon the Government filed its bill and some of the rates were restrained, which could not have been done if the Wickersham commerce court bill, as drawn by the Attorney General, was the law...
...Aldrich's company sells rubber to the American manufacturers...
...Hence, the insinuation that Mr...
...One feels sure after reading Mr...
...Aldrich's candid pron unci amen to—which he took five weeks to incubate—that companies dealing in crude rubber in the non-protected markets regularly pay 18 per cent, every three months...
...And Bristow's reply to Senator Aldrich's reply puts the debate right back where it was after the first accusation...
...It looks rather feasible...
...If it does not decide the question against the railroads, the country will pay the freight...
...True, he is a stockholder in and a director of the Intercontinental Rubber Company—a Ryan-Guggenheim-Rockefeller combine...
...Remember this when you buy your rubber goods...
...But that fact will not be determined in this controversy, nor will any other fact of ultimate or determining force...
...It must decide the question before it without that information...
...In two or three years it might be possible to make a reliable valuation of the properties involved...
...Some lawyer suggested to the Depaitment of Justice that the rate advances having been made by the carriers in concert and by agreement, they could be restrained as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Law...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has unofficially stated that the advances represented by these tariffs average some 16 per cent, and aggregate some $500,-000,000 of the annual shipping to which they apply...
...Even railroad magnates agreed that the advances had been ill-timed...
...When, in 1906, the valuation of the railroad properties of the country was first urged in the Congress of the United States in order that there might be a basis for the determination of the reasonableness of transportation charges, it was answered that the complaint of the country was that rates were discriminatory—not too high...
...The number of roads and tariffs and the magnitude of the advances to be considered further west have not yet been indicated from any reliable source, but they are sufficient to give dignity to the proceedings and to challenge the serious interest of the community...
...And how else are you going to account for the eighteen per cent, in three months...
...To the confiding mind, it is very painful...
...and the response of the powerful associates of Senator Aldrich to the effect that all they want is a fair profit on their investment—"Say about six per cent, a month...
...If it is a fact, as we believe it is, that the railroads are already taking from the public some hundreds of millions annually more than they are justly entitled to for the service rendered, upon the basis of the cost of rendering it and the value of the property used, that fact would be pertinent in this, the greatest rate controversy that the country has seen...
...but had he put any tariff on crude rubber...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission, under the law, has, at the most, ten months in which to decide the question...
...It was several months ago that the railroads agreed with themselves that they needed the money...
...Aldrich with true nobility admits what Mr...
...And it deals in crude, not in manufactured rubber...
...To be sure, Mr Aldrich's crude rubber company has suddenly become a great dividend-payer...
...Do they not...
...We have boosted the duty for you fellows,—our Mr...
...It is a combine, for Mr...
...All he wanted to do was to make the bookkeeping of the Customs Houses easier...
...As an excursion into the occult world the rate cases may be interesting and solemn...
...If it does decide against the railroads, the courts will want to know upon what basis the Commission so decided, and, if the basis is not satisfactory, the Commission will not be sustained...
...These baser natures can imagine the manufacturer saying: "Well, what price do you want for rubber...
...Aldrich boasted, that he had boosted the duty on rubber—but on manufactured rubber, not crude...
...The great and good statesman from Rhode Island had pointed out to the pestiferous Kansan that he (Bristow) had been guilty of gross and inexcusable misstatements...
...But this doesn't mean that it has been assisted by the tariff...
...Aldrich's trust_we mean combine, of course—may have gone to the protected manufacturers and said something like this: "We are the biggest dealers in crude rubber in the world...
...Government valuation of railroads was postponed...
...It is true, he states, that he, Aldrich, is heavily interested in crude rubber...
...Altogether Aldrich's company is the giant of the rubber world...
...The shippers say the carriers are earning enough already—that they are earning as much relatively as they have been in the past...
...Within about three months after it absorbed its "subsidiary" companies, it paid something over 18 per cent, in dividends...
...Aldrich's crude rubber comes in free, absolutely free...
...This clears Mr...
...The carriers say they need the money to enable them to pay larger dividends, so that they may interest new capital for betterments, additions and extensions of their roads and equipment...
...What would you do in the premises if you were a manufacturer...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has suspended the tariffs, has ordered an investigation, and has set dates for hearings in New York and Chicago...
...We must have trust in the patriotism of the man from whose hands we accept that...
...Aldrich asserts that it is not...
...but it simplified the bookkeeping to have the boost made...
...They filed several thousand tariffs with the Interstate Commerce Commission, advancing rates on nearly all the principal roads operating between the Missouri River and the Atlantic Seaboard, the advances averaging between 10 and 20 per cent...
...Aldrich voted himself dividends and advances in the price of his stock is one which is quite baseless, and well worthy of the slimy source from which it emanated— to-wit, the insurgent camp...
...There is now complaint, apparently substantial complaint, that transportation rates, or proposed rates, are excessive by some hundreds of millions...
...Aldrich of a grave charge— that of paying a tariff tax...
...The public sentiment aroused by the advances in rates threatened to become a powerful ally of the Progressive forces in both Houses, who were striving to make the Commerce Bill a bill in the public interest...
...But as an attempt at rate regulation, they are ludricous beyond comparison...
...Probably, however, even so wild-eyed an insurgent as Bbistow never meant to charge him with that...
...Buy our rubber at our prices, or we'll show you what it means to fight the Guggenheims, Ryans, and Rockefellers in the manufacturing business...
...But it is not a trust...
...At the New York hearing more than 4,000 tariffs, issued by more than 400 railroads, are in issue...
...The commerce law was passed, the railroads renewed the rate advances, and the shippers' organizations throughout the country met, protested, organized, raised a fund, appointed committees, hired traffic experts, and retained attorneys to fight the advances...
...It is true, Mr...
...Solemn,—But in the Dark NOW THE COUNTRY will be indulged in the spectacle of the Honorable Interstate Commerce Commission solemnly engaged in answering the question, whether the railroads of the country are entitled to exact from the shippers and consumers a billion dollars a year, more or less, in increased transportation charges...
...They do—not...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 33
