Ex Parte 103 (Cont'd)

Pressing Ex Parte 103, their case for a 15% freight rate increase before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the railroads of the land last week won their first strategic victory over shippers opposing their plea. The I. C. C. originally scheduled the opening of opposition testimony for Aug. 31. In closing their case last week the roads' witnesses vehemently contended that time was an essential consideration, that a six-weeks delay in acting on their petition might do the carriers great financial damage. Grenville Clark, attorney for banks and insurance companies with heavy rail investments, heatedly suggested that Commissioners postpone their summer vacations to the autumn so the rate case could be more quickly disposed of. Shortly retorted Commissioner Meyer, presiding at the hearing: "If anyone thinks the question of vacations enters into the Commission's consideration of this case, he is very much mistaken." Shippers' representatives, on the other hand, insisted that they needed a month or more to prepare their arguments in opposition to rate upping.

Two days after the hearings recessed, the I. C. C. announced that, in accordance with the railroads' request, the date for opening the opposition would be advanced three weeks to Aug. 10. Other hearings scheduled were at: Portland, Me. (Aug. 4), Portland, Ore. (Aug. 12), San Francisco (Aug. 17), Atlanta (Aug. 17), Dallas (Aug. 21), Salt Lake City (Aug. 24), Kansas City (Aug. 26), Chicago (Aug. 31). Shippers were instructed to keep their argument on a broad basis and not single out individual roads for attack. The tenor of the opposition was to be, apparently, that the roads would not increase their net revenue by rate upping because shippers would cut their consignments or find other means of transportation, thus causing freight traffic to drop even more.

"All The Winds That Blow." Ever since the rate case began the I. C. C. has been bombarded with outside advice and suggestions. Propaganda for and against the roads flowed into its quasi-judicial headquarters in Washington. Boldest, most startling public statement on Ex Parte 103 was made fortnight ago by Philadelphia's Representative James Montgomery Beck, good friend of Pennsylvania R. R. who threatened to instigate Congressional action to strip the I. C. C. of its large powers unless it hastened to grant what the roads asked. When Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas read the Beck broadside he sat down and wrote I. C. C. Chairman Ezra Brainerd: "I am astonished.

. . I am astounded. . . . The Beck threat is even more shortsighted and more inopportune than the application of the railroads for this increase. . . . The audacity of his suggestion that the I. C. C. should saddle additional millions of dollars upon the shippers without any study! . . . Where the railroads assert a loss of $400,000,000 in annual income, agriculture took a loss of $2,800,000,000. . . ."

Well aware that Senator Capper's letter was designed to sway the Commission's action no less than Congressman Beck's statement, Chairman Brainerd replied thus to him: "You would be warranted in assuming that despite all attempts to in fluence improperly the Commission's judgment, it will continue to render its decisions based upon 'the record as made, undisturbed by all the winds that blow."

Willard on Napes. As the rail representatives were closing Phase ! of the I. C. C. hearings with long wails about carrier credit, President Daniel Willard of Baltimore & Ohio, one of the half dozen executives who started the rate-increase ball rolling last May, was inspecting his new Chicago & Alton property in Kansas City. Drumming his fingers nervously he there declared: "We can't take the public by the nape of the neck and force it to ride. We can only give it such courteous and fair treatment that it will want to ride. The railroads come back? They haven't been any where. The only reason railroad business is bad is because all kinds of business is bad. . . . The railroads never will get back the travel constantly turning to private automobiles. The public likes to ride in its own car. But when business is good again, the railroads will be in business as inevitably as ever."

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