Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1905 — A UNIQUE SCHEME. [ARTICLE]

A UNIQUE SCHEME.

flat* Plan That Would Salt Railroads, bnt Not the People. The plan of Frank S. Gardner, secretary of the New York bsard of trade and transportation, for regulating railroad rates is a unique oue. Briefly stated, Mr. Gardner’s plan is to give power to the Interstate commerce commission when it has found that a railroad has made a discriminative rate or granted an illegal rebate to declare the rate thus made the legal tariff for a year from that date. This, it Is poiuted out, obviates the objection to giving the interstate commerce commission rate making powers. The offending railroad itself makes the rate, presumably a profitable one, and the commission merely declares the rate to be the legal tariff for a year. The private car lines, etc., are reached by a clause declaring them to be common carriers. President Roosevelt has given a semlIndorsemeut to the plan by requesting that It be embodied in a bill to be presented to congress. But how would this plan help the people who are charged more than a reasonable rate? Discriminative rates and rebates do not injure the public; they only injure the competitor of the favorite who receives the advantage. The small shipper pays the regular rate, and the public, it Is to be presumed, is charged no more for the goods upon which the discriminative rate or rebate has been allowed than upon the goods shipped by competitors at the regular rate. This plan, like others that are being Invented, Is merely a makeshift, because the railroad that is charging exorbitant rates but Is not granting Illegal rebates would be able to continue charging “all the traffic will bear,” and the public would have no redress. What we all want Is reasonable rates, and the only way to obtain them Is to (five the interstate commerce commission power to fix maximum rates beyond which the railroads cannot go.