charters were given without limitations, and in nearly all of the States general railroad laws were passed which permitted any five individuals to organize, file a map, and proceed to build a railroad wherever they saw fit.

This system has gone on, and the injustice which has grown up under it by favoritism to persons, by favoritism to particular towns, by a thousand and one forms of unjust discrimination against individuals and places, has been such that at the present time the principal question before the people is how this vast power shall be properly controlled, shall be so controlled as to bring the greatest benefit to all our people, and at the same time to neither destroy nor unjustly injure railroad property itself. Many efforts have been made. We know of the efforts that were made in the West and of the result under what was called the granger laws, that by applying exact and iron-bound rules and regulations as to their tariffs and by the passage of pro rata freight laws not only the railroads themselves were greatly injured, but all the people of the States who expected to be benefited by them were equally injured, and in most cases those rigorous laws were abandoned. In the East in the study of this question the State of Massachusetts first led off with a railroad-commission law, which has been in operation now for many years, and which is admitted on all hands, by the railroads and by the people of Massachusetts, to have been of great benefit to them. The railroad-commission law of Massachusetts, as is well known, is a law which gives to a commission the power to investigate all complaints made against the railroads for any or all causes and report thereon. It has no power of enforcing its decisions. The decisions are enforced only by the power of public opinion, which is called into force by the recommendations which are made by the commission. The investigation in Boston when the commission was called before our committee and when the principal shippers of Boston were called before it brought out the fact that this commission had succeeded in settling nearly all the difficulties arising between the shippers and the railroad companies in Massachusetts, and that it had brought about a settlement of many questions which had before caused great trouble and which had brought about great hardship to the shipping interests of Massachusetts. I believe that the whole people of Massachusetts are to-day substantially satisfied with their railroad commission.

Some other States have followed in the same line, notably the State of New York, which within the last few years has adopted substantially the Massachusetts law with equally good results. For many years the railroads of New York fought against any commission bill. They claimed and demanded the right to manage their own affairs as they saw fit. Claiming for themselves the same privileges in the control of their own affairs as comes to the ordinary private citizen in the management of his private business, for many years they prevented the Legislature of the State of New York from legislating upon this question at all. But finally all parties were satisfied that some tribunal was necessary, that there must be some common ground found where the complaints of the shippers, the manufacturers, and the farmers could be heard, and where the railroads could be heard, and where there could be given some judgment upon the question. Finally New York passed her railroad-commission law, which, as I have stated, is substantially the law of Massachusetts. It has been accepted by every railroad corporation within its borders; and I do not believe that there is to-day a railroad corporation in the State of New York or any of the officers of any of the railroads who would consent to the repeal of that law. The commission has heard the complaints, it has adjusted them by making

public its decisions, and in nearly all cases the railroad companies have carried into effect the recommendations of the railroad commission.

Many of the States are adopting substantially this system; and reasoning from the beneficial effects which have come from the adoption of these laws in many of the States of the Union, it has seemed to the committee and to all who have considered the subject that perhaps a similar law, which should take into consideration all interstate commerce, which certainly is of greater importance than the commerce of any particular State or any number of our States, would be equally beneficial; for to-day the principal complaints which are made against the railroad companies of the country are made in regard to interstate commerce. The complaints are that particular great shippers of grain and produce are favored by the great transportation companies, that they are given lower rates than the ordinary shipper, and that therefore the men who have grown rich by these discriminations can and do crush out all single individuals of moderate capital who attempt to engage in the transportation of the great produce of our country.

The investigation before the committee showed conclusively that complaints of this kind were being constantly made, and they were of great force and weight with the committee. It was for that reason that the committee in preparing this bill went further than any of the State laws have gone. This bill undertakes to enact as a statute and to provide that there shall be no unjust discriminations between shippers, great or small, that there shall be no such thing as drawbacks or rebates, and that the great injustice which has been done to many of our people by a railroad company undertaking to give to one firm or to one individual a drawback or rebate upon the amount of freight shipped over its road, which was so great as to prevent all other shippers from engaging in the business, will be entirely removed if this bill shall become a law.

The committee has undertaken also to provide that there shall be no unjust discriminations as between different portions of our country. Many complaints have been made, and great have been the complaints, that railroad companies have given rates to the shippers of a particular town which were so much more favorable than the rates given to the shippers of another or adjacent town, that one town was ruined entirely for the advantage of another town. You may to-day travel over our land and you will find that where twenty-five or thirty years ago there were young cities starting up with great promise of growth, by the unjust system of discrimination which has been pursued by railroads they have either been destroyed or prevented from further growing, and in their place at competing points have grown up great cities, absolutely created by the unjust discrimination of railroad companies. The committee believed that this was all wrong, and it has undertaken to provide by a positive enactment that it shall not be done.

In my judgment, notwithstanding all the benefits which railroads have conferred on our people by almost destroying distance and time in the transportation of passengers and freight, still they have done our country a great wrong in destroying the value of large portions of it and increasing the value of other portions of it by unjust discriminations given to particular towns. The abnormal growth of our great cities, our manufacturing centers, during the past thirty years can be attributed almost entirely to the discriminations of railroad companies. If it had not been for this, instead of a few great and overgrown centers where wealth is accumulated enormously and where crime and misery have accumulated in a like proportion, there would now be scattered all over this broad country in every little village and hamlet the great industries which collect around a few great competing points.

If we believe that the chief benefit which comes to our country from a protective tariff is to be found in the fact that it brings diversified industries to our people, is it not equally true that these diversified industries should be spread all over the country and not brought together in a few great centers? I can show you, if you will travel with me in New England, in New York, and in Pennsylvania, the ruins of many heretofore successful establishments which have been abandoned and given up, the proprietors finding it necessary to transfer their plant to some great railroad center in order that they might there have the benefits of railroad competition. Has this been any benefit to our people at large? Not at all. Wherever you seize upon the powers of nature, wherever you occupy a water-power and establish a manufactory, you there increase the value of the surrounding farm lands; but when you make it impossible for our people to use these forces of nature, when you compel them by your railroad rates to give up water power and move to great cities and there use steam power only in order that they may have the benefit of a cheap transportation, you are making a few great centers rich-rich not out of newly created wealth, but rich simply because you transfer wealth from other portions of our country to those great centers. Thus great injury has been done to our country, not intentionally, by the railroads, but because heretofore being left to compete among themselves they have found it necessary to make discriminating rates at competing points.

Our investigation shows that the great bulk of the transporters of this country, the bulk of the railroad men of this country, are to-day being aroused to the injustice of this operation. The railroads are finding that it is for their advantage to cultivate and foster local traffic, and therefore it is that they are willing to give up the great power of thus discriminating against persons and places. But one railroad line says that it can not abandon this power which it has used heretofore unless all the other railroad lines are compelled to abandon it at the same time. We must acknowledge the force of that argument. It can not be carried out except it be carried out as a whole, and it is for this reason that it has been thought wise that we should attempt to bring over the great interstate commerce of this country a control similar to that which has been brought over the transportation of many of the individual States.

I said that this bill goes further than many of our State laws. Let me read the provision of section 4:

That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier to charge or receive any greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of passengers or property subject to the provisions of this act for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line, in the same direction, and from the same original point of departure: Provided, however, That upon application to the commission appointed under the provisions of this act, such common carrier may, in special cases, be authorized to charge less for longer than for shorter distances for the transportation of passengers or property; and the commission may from time to time make general rules covering exceptions to any such common carrier, in cases where there is competition by river, sea, canal, or lake, exempting such designated common carrier in such special cases from the operation of this section of this act.

The committee believed that that section was absolutely necessary it we were to prevent unjust discrimination between different persons or between different towns. It is undoubtedly a question of the very first importance not only to the railroad companies but to the producers and the shippers.

While some of our States have gone so far as to provide that under no circumstance shall any railroad charge more for a short than a long haul, the committee did not believe it wise in this early stage of its

legislation to make so rigid a provision as that. Therefore it is provided that upon an application to the commission an exception may be made if there shall be found good reason for it. Provision is also made that this shall apply to all freights starting from the same point and going in the same direction. The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. CAMDEN] has made a very able argument against the provision as to starting from the same initial point. I must confess that I was greatly inclined to that opinion when the matter was being considered in the committee, but after full consideration and investigation the committee adopted the language which we find in the fourth section, and it is substantially the Massachusetts law.

I have no doubt that that fact was to a large extent controlling with the committee in presenting the language as we find it here. I can see, however, very little danger if the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia should prevail so long as the proviso is maintained in the bill. I do not believe it would be safe to enact in the bill an absolute provision that there should under no circumstances be a greater charge for a short than for a long haul, because, as we all know, during a large portion of the year when the great lakes and the canals and the rivers are open, it is quite probable that such a provision might work at times severe hardship to some particular railroad company, or to some particular community; but so long as the provision shall be permitted to remain in the bill allowing the commission upon application by any of the railroad companies to make an exception in a particular case, I believe that no great harm can come to the railroad companies, even if the amendment or a portion of the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia should be adopted.

The law in Pennsylvania has been equivalent to that for the past twenty-five years, and I believe that the whole railroad business of that great State has adapted itself to the provisions of that law and that none of the railroad officials and none of the shippers of that State would to-day desire to change it. Substantially the same law prevails in Ohio, I think precisely the same law, and in a number of other States of the Union; just how many I am not able to say.

That provision, to my mind, either amended or not amended as suggested by the Senator from West Virginia, is by far the most important provision in the bill. Take that out and the bill is of very little use; the commission would be able to accomplish but very little. True they might investigate and report to Congress, but their powers in preventing unjust discriminations between persons or between different shipping points would be almost nothing. I trust that the Senate will agree with the committee and leave that section substantially as it is. The bill does not attempt to fix rates. The committee did not believe that it was wise for Congress to undertake to do that with its present imperfect knowledge. It did not believe that it was wise to give that power to any commission which might be organized under the bill. I believe that the history of all railroad legislation, not only of this country but of Europe, will bear the committee out in that judgment. We have not yet so far advanced in the science of transportation and of the management of railroads that we can say by exact statute what shall be the limit of railroad charges; but when we provide that there shall be no unjust discrimination between persons, without regard to whether they are large or small shippers, when we undertake to provide that there shall be no unjust discrimination against particular places, and when we undertake to say that there shall be no greater charge for a short than for a long haul, we shall have gone very far toward remedying and removing all the complaints which are made against the railroad companies at the present day.

There was no doubt in the minds of the committee as to the power of the Federal Government to enact this legislation, and in that respect I may notice that there has been a great change in public opinion and in the laws of our country by the decisions of the courts within the last ten or fifteen years. Ten years ago undoubtedly a majority of the railroad lawyers of the country and the railroad officials of the country held that there was no power whatever in the Federal Government to exercise any control over railroads, and no power to in any way affect their management. Only a few years previous to that there was no admission on the part of any railroads of this country that there was any power in a State government to regulate their charges or in any way control their business. Gradually, as the matter has been brought before the courts of the country, commencing with the lower courts until finally it has reached to our highest courts, it has been shown that the power of State governments over the railroads within their bounds is undoubtedly absolute and complete, and that the various States could, if they saw fit, enact laws fixing absolutely the rate of charges.

Undoubtedly at the present time also it is admitted by nearly all engaged in transportation that the Federal Government through the power given it in the Constitution can use and exercise the powers which are conferred on the commission under the provisions of the bill. I believe that no one will be found to deny it. The question then is simply one of advisability, whether it is wise to pass this legislation, to give our people this measure of relief and to provide a court where all the people may come with their complaints, where they may be heard, where there may be a thorough investigation, where testimony may be taken, and where there shall be a decision by a commission of disinterested men, Government officials; and then if the railroads refuse to carry out the recommendations of the commission the shipper still has his remedy at law; he may still appeal to the common law and to the courts to give him justice.

I have no doubt myself, if this bill shall be enacted into a law and the commissioners shall be appointed under it, the same beneficial results will come from it as have come from the enactment of similar laws in various States. I belive it is as far as we can go at the present time in this matter, and until a commission shall have been established and shall have made its reports to Congress I believe it would be unwise to go further in the direction of making absolute and iron-clad regulations for the transportation of freight.

The bill provides, and one of its chief provisions is, that there shall be publicity of rates. It has been found in various States that publicity was the great corrector of all the evils complained of. If a railroad company were not permitted to make secret rates, if the rates were published to all, then every shipper, no matter what his importance or unimportance might be, would know precisely what the railroad was doing, and he would be able to manage his business accordingly. Thus it is that in this bill we have provided under severe penalties for a publishing of rates, and then we have forbidden that rates shall be raised except upon ten days' notice. Some have believed, and some of the committee believed, that longer notice ought to be given; some thought that it might be done on shorter notice; but finally the committee decided upon ten days as a proper limit of notice. If the Senate shall think that a longer notice would be better it can express that opinion by so voting.

It was not thought wise by the committee that there should be any limit of time as to notice of the reduction of rates. If in the competi