Wreck at the Crossing

After four years of knee-and-gouge legal battle with the U.S. long-haul trucking industry. 24 Eastern railroads emerged last week with a black eye that is likely to remain visible for some time. In Philadelphia, Federal District Judge Thomas

J. Clary Jr. ruled that the railroads violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by engaging in "one large, ever-growing conspiracy" to destroy the competition of long-haul trucks. He awarded only nominal damages of 18-c- each to 37 trucking companies, but said he would award additional damages plus attorneys' fees and court costs to the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association. He invited the truckers to draw up an injunction for the court to issue to curb the rails' anti-truck campaign. Wrote Judge Clary, in an acid 200-page decision: "There is a strong possibility that the defendants are ready, willing and able to continue their campaign to destroy the good will of the long-haul trucking industry."

Pressure. The heart of the truckers' case was an apparent effort by the rails to block interstate trucking in the heavily industrial Northeast by erecting a "Chinese wall'' around Pennsylvania. The wall was Pennsylvania's 45,000-lb. limit on truck loads, second lowest in the U.S. and at least 13,000 Ibs. under surrounding states. Though the Pennsylvania legislature in 1951 boosted the limit to 60,000 Ibs., Governor John Fine vetoed the bill largely because of pressure brought to bear by ostensibly grass-roots citizens' organizations for tax reform and highway safety. The truckers had to wait until 1955 before the limit was finally raised.

Judge Clary found that many of the "voluntary" groups were actually "false fronts" bankrolled by the railroads' publicist, Carl Byoir & Associates, Inc.. which got about $500,000 yearly from the roads. Said the judge: "Byoir quietly concealed from objective-minded public officials the fact that its entire campaign was a creature of the railroads ... for the purpose of hindering and destroying the trucking industry as a competitor. As a result of this campaign [truckers] were characterized as lawbreakers, road-hoggers, completely indifferent to the safety of others, and moochers on the public through failure to pay their way." Added Clary: "The chief device used is known as the Big Lie.'

Propaganda. The Byoir agency's specialty was to plant anti-truck articles, which carried the bylines of top free-lance writers. Evidence was presented that Byoir helped write or research truc's stories in Harper's and the Saturday Evening Post. The agency admitted paying $500 to the author of "The Giants That Wreck Our Highways," which ran in Everybody's Digest; a film based on another Byoir-inspired article appearing in 1952 went out to small-town theaters under the production banner of the "Farm Roads Foundation." The film credits mention neither Byoir Associates, who wrote the script, nor the railroads, who anted up $60,000 of the production costs.

Byoir admittedly paid the costs of news releases, sent out under the letterheads of the "Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors" and the Pennsylvania State Grange, attacking the bill to raise the weight limit. Byoir edited anti-truck speeches for the P.S.A.T.S.'s secretary, claimed credit for working with the Grange "to set up a special program to contact senators in doubtful counties."

Counterattack. The truckers themselves were not immune to back-alley tactics. Judge Clary noted that their public relations firm. Manhattan's Allied Public Relations Associates. Inc.. "attempted in a limited degree to use the Byoir technique of phony organizations to attack the railroads." But he added that "wiser heads" in the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association called a halt to the program.

Hearing the decision, railroaders were stunned, announced grimly that they would appeal immediately. Said Pennsylvania President James M. Symes with white-lipped formality: "I am astonished.

But until I have consulted with counsel, I shall reserve further comment."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.