Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1906 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. From our Special Correspondent: Designating the pipe lines as common carriers and placing them within the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission is the latest threat that has been made in the war of reformation to be waged against the railroads. The location of the warlike move in the future tense is made advisedly. There are all sorts o' threats being made as to wha; Congress is going to do to the railroads with a view to bring them into line and making them give all shippers impartial treatment. Doubtless many members of Congress are sincere in this determination. But to see the plan really carried out would be so foreign to anything that has ever been done in the history of this country than one may be pardoned for hesitating a bit before classing threa; with execution. Many members of Congress own stock in railroads. More would like to. Many members also have business interests that do a large though not a preponderating amount of shipping, and all or nearly all members ride on passes when they can get them. There are ways of reaching a majority and a very large majority of members, and the railroads usually succeed in reaching them before any important piece of railroad legislation is consnmated. But the bill to declare the pipe lines common carriers has already been introducec by Mr. Rhinock, an obscure member from Kentucky. The term obscure is not used in an offensive sense, but Mr. Rhinock is one of the members who may not be classed as a house leader, and his measure while undeniably a jus one, possibly will not meet with the enthusiasm that would have been accorded had it been introduced by a member who has been more in the limelight. The member in question in discussing his bill says simply that the pipe lines are as much common carriers as the railroads and they are the only competitors of the railroads with their tank cars and other equipment. They tap all the oil producing territory in the United States and in the case of many oil wells that are far off the railroads, they furnish the only means of transporting crude oil to a refining market. Now it is known of course that the pipe lines in the past have declared themselves ouiside the Interstate Commerce law and have practiced all sorts of oppression and discrimination. They have been able to make or kill an oil community. They have been able to dictate the price at which they would buy crude oil from the well owners and the price at which they would jell it to the refiners. Thus they had both ends of the industry in their hands. Of course the bulk of the pipe lines are owned or controlled by the Standard Oil Company and the blow, if it is a blow, will fall on this great insti-tution,-to call the monopoly by the best name possible. If the Rhinock bill goes through, and there is every reason to say it ought and think it won’t, the independent refiners and oil well owners will be given the greatest possible aid in their struggle for existence. The bill is only another move in what looks like an attempt to get fair an open treatment for all shippers and to prevent all the profits of the producer from being swallowed up in the attempt to [get bis commodity on the market. t t t One of the features of the pending rate bill that the railroads fear more than the actual fact of rate regulation is according to 1 Congressman Esch, of Esch-Town- , send Bill fame, the publicity that will attach to their business if the Interstate Commerce Commission is really allowed to go after their I

books and air a few facts about their accounts. Of course there are some features of every business that may properly be regarded as trade secrets and some on which the very success of the business depends But there is little in the proposed publicity that will attach to the railroads that any honest corporation ought to fear. Yet the railrdads do fear it and they fear it, according to Mr. Esch, because they know that publicity as to many of their practices will solidify the sentiment for strict governmental supervision of their dealings with the shipping public. Scarcely a day passes that the Interstate Commission does not get a complaint from some small shipper' to the effect that the , railroad tariff between his factory town and his natural market threatens to entirely wipe out both bis business and the community of which that business is the chief support. He is changed a higher rate for hauling his fuel from the mines than the same railroads charges for hauling the same fuel from the same mines a greater distance to the bigger towns.; He is discriminated against in the same way when he imports his raw material and exports his finished product. These cases are comparatively small individually, but in the aggregate they are enormous. The question is why should they exist at all? The publicity feature of the rate bill would explain them and a good many things beside. This is one of the chief fears of the railroads. The fear of publicity which an honest business should welcome, is going to be the greatest stumbling block in the way of effective rate legislation.