Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

CHAPTER XL.

DIFFERENCES WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

PRIOR to President Roosevelt's election in 1904, he and

I had never had any serious differences of opinion about public affairs. Later I differed with him in a broad way as to the Initiative, the Referendum, the Recall and all the other Socialistic ideas, as I regarded them, that had been advocated by W. J. Bryan and other Democrats, and by Socialistic leaders generally, to the extent he adopted and advocated them.

It is not my purpose to speak in this connection of that difference, but rather of three matters that presented themselves in concrete form, about which my Senatorial duties required me to differ with him positively and earnestly. They were Joint Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, the conferring of the rate making power on the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Brownsville shooting affray, on account of which he discharged a whole battalion of the 25th Infantry, colored troops, without sufficient evidence as I thought then and still think.

In the Senate I discussed at length and repeatedly all these subjects generally and in detail. It never occurred to me in connection with the question of Joint Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, or the discussion of the rate bill, that I was either saying or doing anything that would give him offense, or cause him to have any kind of ill feeling. I assumed that he was strong enough and broadminded enough and had respect enough for my duties as a Senator to accord me the privilege of differing from him and of maintaining and advocating with respect to such differences such views as my convictions of duty might lead me to entertain.

I am sure if there had been only these two differences there would not have been any trouble-not more at least than a mere temporary disappointment.

As to the Brownsville matter it was different, but I shall deal with that in another chapter.

So far as the Statehood matter is concerned that has already been, perhaps, sufficiently dealt with. If I add anything at all to what has been said, let it be that the President first officially announced his position in favor of Joint Statehood in his Message sent to Congress December 5, 1905. On this subject he said:

I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma be admitted as one State and that New Mexico and Arizona be admitted as one State. There is no obligation upon us to treat territorial subdivisions, which are matters of convenience only, as binding us on the question of admission to statehood. Nothing has taken up more time in the Congress during the past few years than the question as to the statehood to be granted to the four Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration of all that has been developed in the discussions of the question, I recommend that they be immediately admitted as two States. There is no justification for further delay; and the advisability of making the four Territories into two States has been clearly established.

With special reference to his claim that territorial subdivisions involve no obligation on the part of the Government to adhere to them in making States, I pointed out in the course of the debate on the subject that when the territory of Arizona was created in 1863 during the administration of Mr. Lincoln, Congress provided in the act

That said government shall be maintained and continued until such time as the people residing in said territory shall apply for and obtain admission as a State.

This I contended was in the nature of a pledge given by the Government on which the people of Arizona had a right to rely in becoming citizens of that territory and in taxing themselves for the erection of public buildings and the establishment of schools and colleges.

In addition to the fact that I entertained the views I expressed in debate, on account of which it was impossible for me to accept and follow the President's recommendation for Joint Statehood, the record shows that as early as in 1903 I had, in support of the bill then under consideration

providing for separate Statehood, taken the same position and made the same character of arguments to which I adhered until the end. In other words, the position I took and contended for throughout was taken and contended for long before the President expressed any opinion on the subject.

So far as the Joint Statehood matter was concerned, it was not, therefore, a difference of my seeking, as some one charged, for I was not aware we had different opinions on the subject until his Message of December, 1905.

So far as the giving of the rate making power to the Interstate Commerce Commission was concerned, a much broader and more important question was involved.

The President first advocated this proposition in his Message to Congress of December 5, 1904.

I was a member of the Interstate Commerce Committee of the Senate. For several years that committee had constantly under consideration measures of various kinds for the further and more efficient regulation of the railroads, most of them brought forward at the instance of commercial bodies and labor organizations, but quite aside from my membership of that committee I was active in promoting legislation of that character.

As early as June 24, 1902, I introduced Senate Bill No. 3560, known as the Railroad Safety Appliance Bill, which became a law March 2, 1903. I introduced this measure at the request of the organized employees of the railroads and championed it in the committee and on the floor of the Senate, where I had charge of the measure when it was put on its passage.

I took an active and very prominent part both in the committee and in the Senate in the work of bringing about the enactment of what was known as the Elkins law, passed February 19, 1903.

The Interstate Commerce Committee referred this measure to a sub-committee, composed of Mr. Elkins, Chairman, Senator Clapp and myself. We recast the measure and put

it into the form in which it was reported favorably by the committee, and passed by the Senate. It was called the Elkins law, because it was reported by Mr. Elkins, Chairman of the committee; but no one had more to do with the framing of the law than I had.

It was a measure designed primarily to break up secret rebates and discriminations of every kind and character practiced by the railroads. It was advocated by the shipping interests of the whole country and opposed generally by the railroads.

The Interstate Commerce Commission, in its seventeenth annual report, made December, 1903, set forth the character, scope, purpose and beneficial operation of this law, as follows:

Its provisions are mainly designed to prevent or more effectually reach those infractions of law, like the payment of rebates and kindred practices, which are classed as misdemeanors.

In the first place, the recent amendment makes the railway corporation itself liable to prosecution in all cases where its officers and agents are liable under the former law. Such officers and agents continue to be liable as heretofore, but this liability is now extended to the corporation which they represent. This change in the law corrects a defect which has always been a source of embarrassment to the Commission, as has been explained in previous reports, because it gave immunity to the principal and beneficiary of a guilty transaction. As a practical matter, it is believed that much benefit will result from the fact that proceedings can now be taken against the corporation.

The amended law has abolished the penalty of imprisonment, and the only punishment now provided is the imposition of fines. As the corporation can not be imprisoned or otherwise punished for misdemeanors than by money penalties, it was deemed expedient that no greater punishment be visited upon the offending officer or agent. The various arguments in favor of this change have been stated in former reports and need not here be repeated. Whether the good results claimed by its advocates will be realized is by no means certain, but the present plan should doubtless be continued until its utility is further tested.

Without further reference to the changes effected by this amendatory legislation the Commission feels warranted in saying that its beneficial bearing became evident from the time of its passage. It has proved a wise and salutary enactment. It has corrected serious defects in the original law and greatly aided the attainment of some of the purposes for which that law was enacted. No one familiar with railway conditions can expect that rate cutting and other secret devices will immediately and wholly disappear, but there is basis for a confident

belief that such offenses are no longer characteristic of railway operations. That they have greatly diminished is beyond doubt, and their recurrence to the extent formerly known is altogether unlikely. Indeed, it is believed that never before in the railroad history of this country have tariff rates been so well or so generally observed as they are at the present time.

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

In its present form the law appears to be about all that can be provided against rate cutting in the way of prohibitive and punitive legislation. Unless further experience discloses defects not now perceived, we do not anticipate the need of further amendments of the same character and designed to accomplish the same purpose.

No measure ever yet enacted has proven more effective than this law in the breaking up of the abuses and evil practices of which the shippers were at that time making just complaint.

I mention these measures as I might mention a half dozen others, if there were occasion for me to do so, only to show that I was never opposed to the proposition that there should be a proper, general governmental supervision and regulation of the interstate railroads of the country.

On the contrary, I was one of the foremost advocates of that policy and supported it as it found expression in the enactments of Congress down to the point where it was proposed, as a part of this policy, to confer on the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to make rates.

Our committee had taken a great deal of testimony of shippers and railroad officials with respect to the practices about which there was complaint, and in this connection a great many witnesses had testified about the rates for the carrying of passengers and freights charged by the railroads of the United States, and almost without exception everybody, whether a shipper or a railroad man, had testified that, so far as the rates themselves were concerned, they were not excessive, except possibly in some few instances; that, generally speaking, they were entirely reasonable; that in fact they were lower in this country than in any other country in the world; much lower than in England, or France, or Germany, or any great country with which it was fair to compare the railroad conditions of the United States.

« ForrigeFortsett »