Rocky Mountains Defeated

People in Phoenix, Ariz., have, or at least have reason to think they have a grievance. Railroads charge them $1.19 1/2 per 100 pounds to ship their canned milk 400 miles across the border to Guaymas, Mexico. New York manufacturers pay only $1 per 100 pounds to ship canned milk 3,700 miles to Guaymas.

No queerer is the fact that grapes may travel from California to New York for $1.73 a hundred, whereas they pay $3 a hundred traveling the exact opposite direction.

Once Senator Smoot tried to start a woolen industry in Provo, Utah. Business genius though he is, he soon gave up. Why? 1) Because it cost him $2.25 a hundred to get wool from San Francisco whereas Bostonians got wool from San Francisco for 75c. 2) Because Bostonians could ship their finished product to Chicago for 50c whereas it cost him $3.40 from Provo.

To the business man, these oddities and quiddities of freight rates are no mystery. They have existed for nearly a century, and for half a century have been hotly debated. The principle of apparently illogical rates has been upheld by the Supreme Court. It is the rule in Canada, in England. It has been sustained by members of the Interstate Commerce Commission with few exceptions. The "cut rates" on long hauls are the result of competition with water routes--ocean, lake or Panama Canal. A railroad gets business in the first instance for service which water routes cannot render (service of speed, service to interior localities), for which it charges presumably a fair rate. But the more business a railroad gets, the less its operating cost per ton per mile, the greater its profits. So, to swell the volume of its business, a railroad will take business at "cut rates" which otherwise it would not get because of water competition.

But this sound and simple reason for the difference in rates between certain long and short hauls does not lessen the grievance of Arizona milk canners in competition with New York, does not enable Senator Smoot to build up teeming wool industries in yawning Utah.

Round and round this circle of fact and argument went many of the best minds of the Senate two days last week. They had before them Senator Frank R. Gooding's bill, which was designed to deprive the Interstate Commerce Commission of the right to permit these "unequal" rates. Two hours before closing of debate, faces became tense. Senators counted their allotted minutes. Last year the Gooding bill had passed the Senate but had failed of action in the House. This year it seemed unlikely even to pass the Senate, but no one could tell, for party lines were frankly abandoned. It was a sectional matter.

Senators Lenroot, Fess, Bruce urged that, if the transcontinental business were practically taken from the railroads and given to the ships, the railroads would be forced to raise their rates on all traffic, and even the interior Rocky Mountain states would lose in the end. Up spake keen Mr. Walsh of Montana; prodded the three Senators lustily for daring to imply that the business men of the Rocky Mountain states did not know what was good for them. At last, with 26 minutes left, Senator Gooding of Idaho rose for the final speech. Said he:

"The schoolboy knows that we can tear down even a great city like Chicago in one short year through discrimination in freight rates. Give me control of freight rates and I will have the bats flying through any manufacturing establishment in America in less than one short year. All we ask in the West is what is guaranteed under the Constitution, the same rights and the same privileges that this Government is giving to the states east of Chicago. That is all we are fighting for."

Then, as if knowing his words were vain, he seemed to give up argument and to abandon himself to an emotional plea for his pet bill. He spoke of his undeveloped, unappreciated, unknown country:

"So the West is standing with its back to the wall, fighting for its very existence, and, come what will, this fight will go on until the people of the West are given a square deal, under the spirit of the Constitution, which has been denied to us."

He rambled on. Vice President Dawes nodded. The Senator wound up:

"I want to say to you that a vote for Senate bill 575 will merely give to the West and to the western people just a square deal; that is all. I appeal again to Senators. When we voted on this measure a year ago, after discussing it for seven days upon the floor of the Senate to the exclusion of all other business, the vote stood 54 to 23. The railroad lobby was not in evidence at that time to the extent--"

Brutally, the Vice President cut in:

"The hour of three o'clock having arrived, under the unanimous-consent agreement the Senate will proceed to vote upon Senate bill 575."

The Gooding "long and short haul" bill was defeated 46-33. Democrats split exactly even, 15 on each side. Most of the eastern Republicans voted against the bill. Republicans for the bill were only 18 in number--Westerners, Radicals, and Senators Couzens, Reed, Wadsworth.

Not only is this the end of the Gooding bill this year, it is also the end of important railroad legislation. That is, there is little chance of any radical change this year in Federal legislation governing railroads.

Defeated in his attempt to prohibit all forms of "long and short haul," Senator Gooding promptly introduced another bill to prevent "the evil" in some particular cases. His new bill is designed to prohibit railroads from making special rates .to compete with waterways other than the Panama Canal. This will be opposed as bitterly as ever by-the Great Lakes representatives, but since it does not greatly affect rates between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, Senator Gooding hopes to get some support from seaboard Senators. But it is unlikely that this bill will agitate the present session.