Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1914 — SEEK TO RESTRICT RAILROADS’ GRASP [ARTICLE]

SEEK TO RESTRICT RAILROADS’ GRASP

Interstate Commerce Commission Would Widely Separate Front Private Business. Washington, July 20.—Urging that the line of demarkation be tween great railroad interests and private business enterprises* particularly those relating to the coal industry, be more clearly drown, the interstate commerce commission today recommended to congress that the Hepburn rate law fie extended to embrace all traffic. This clause now declares it unlawful for a railroad to transport any article, other than timber and eoel, in which it may have any interest, except such articles necessary for its Use as a common carrier. The commissioner’s report was based on its investigation into the transportation of coal and oil, ordered by congress nearly seven years ago. : From facts developed in the investigation, “particularly those describing the industrial railways around St. Louis, and those des-cribing-the relations of the New York Central lines to coal properties, in Illinois,” the commission declared ft “believes it important that the public business of transportation should- be ckariy separated from private business, that railroads should be prohibited from furnishing, directly or indirectly, capital or loans to private enterprises; that railroads should be prohibited from extending the use of their credit for the benefit of private individuals or companies; and tharfr the commodities clause should be enforced and extended to all traffic.” The report asserted that a “potent evil arising from the mutual interests of carriers and coal companies lies in the fact that Inasmuch as there are In reality two profits, one in the safe and the other in the transportation of the coal, the profit in the freight rate becomes an added factor in the competition for commercial coal business.” . ~- U :~- 7 The report includes a long list Of railroads owning bonds and stocks in coal companies, and officials of many lines were said to hold interests in coal properties. A list of stockholders of the Wabash railroad, as of October 3, I#ll, showed the stock largely to be held In names of members of the Gould family and a man understood to represent the Russell Sage estate, and -the commission remarked that the “records of the Consolidated Coal company of St Louis show the Stock of that company to rest largely with members of the Gould tonally and Olivia H. Sage.”