be established in the interurban communities throughout the country over any territory which is on the line of the interurban railroad.

Mr. CASS. Taking that view of it, and assuming that that is true, suppose that it is to the interest of some community-suppose that later on some community finds that it is greatly to its interest to have a freight business done upon a portion of the Milwaukee interurban line. Does it do any harm that there may be a body of men who should have the right to review

Mr. STAFFORD. I take a different position from what you do, to the effect that this phraseology in nowise excepts that line of railroads when it does do a freight business, because it is an electric railroad regardless of whether it is passenger or freight.

Mr. CASS. Assuming that it is an electric railroad, a great many electric railroads in densely populated communities are entirely satisfied to operate their roads in order that they may go ahead and keep out of the government regulation or control. Ordinarily the fellow that is afraid of government regulation is the fellow that is liable to do something he ought not to do. We are not afraid.

Mr. STAFFORD. I don't think there is really any dispute between us. I believe that the bill, as phrased, would give the Interstate Commerce Commission the authority to regulate, on through business, freight originating or dispatched on electric roads that do a freight business.

Mr. CASS. But you put a clause in here which gives the other fellow a mighty good fighting chance to keep them from doing it. If the Supreme Court of the United States should hold as the supreme court of the State of Iowa has held in our case, we could not do the business.

Mr. STAFFORD. You stated that you are not a lawyer, and of course it is a question of construction.

Mr. CASS. That is it exactly. If the United States court should hold as the state court of Iowa has held in our instance, then the Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Railroad would be shut off from 40 per cent of its revenue; 40 per cent of the revenue of our road doing business in communities that have no other railroad. If it is not the intention or desire of the Government to interfere with that class of railroads, and if it is not intended that the mere fact of a trolley wire being strung over a track should not change the character of the railroad, the railroad that does the same character of business that the steam railroad does, and this committee sees fit to report a bill with an amendment so that that can not be misconstrued by the Supreme Court unless they construe it as to all railroads, then so far as our company is concerned, and so far as the interurban railroads of Iowa are concerned, we will be happy, contented, and satisfied. But I don't yet see why the Interstate Commerce Commission should not be given the right upon hearing, and upon finding the physical conditions of both the railroads equal in transacting business with the public, to transact that business if the public demands it.

Mr. PETERS. You expressed the opinion that steam railroads should not be allowed to own stock in interurban railroads. Do you think that prohibition should not extend to cases where it is allowed by the law of a State, or do you think that should be an absolute prohibition?

Mr. CASS. I think, on the broad principle of transportation, that consolidation in transportation, in competitive transportation, should

be prohibited wherever it is met and under whatever circumstances. I believe that the public demands that condition; that the public welfare demands it. But I don't know that I can exactly answer your question to a closer point than that. That would be considering questions of constitutionality and of rights of States to govern, and so forth, and I would not know just what to say as to that. But I believe it should be prohibited wherever possible.

Mr. RICHARDSON. If I understand you correctly, if this parapraph is left in the bill, that affords the steam railroads a much greater and a better and more efficient opportunity to crush the electric railroads than if it is stricken out?

Mr. CASS. Precisely so, and I think I speak advisedly, because I have gone through steam railroad practice from the position of a telegraph operator up to that of vice-president, and I have built an electric railroad.

Mr. ADAMSON. It occurred to me that possibly in making your lines a part of a through route there might be diverted some business from a trunk line, and it might diminish to some extent the revenue of the trunk line?

Mr. CASS. Well, I can answer that in this way: That during my administration upon a trunk-line railroad, directing the commercial affairs of that railroad, I made it a practice to encourage the building of electric lines, carriers, and connections, and I established with every electric line that was built along the line of the Chicago Great Western Railroad, while I was with that company, through rates and routes willingly, because I discovered that the benefit that the electric railroad brought into communities, the added prosperity, added a great deal more to the trunk-line business than it took away from it. It has never been the practice on the part of trunk lines, outside of the Chicago Great Western, to encourage the building of the electric lines, and the trunk lines have stoutly refused to make joint rates with electric railroads ever since I knew anything about it. Mr. ADAMSON. They might be available as feeders, but if permitted to become undesirable rivals, the trunk lines would not think them so valuable.

Mr. CASS. I am perfectly willing to let the trunk lines take care of themselves, but I think the public demands that they have the through routes.

The CHAIRMAN. We have given you one hour, Mr. Cass, and we have some other witnesses here to be heard.

Mr. Cass. I shall be glad to yield whenever the gentlemen desire. Mr. RICHARDSON. What is the mileage of the electric railroads of this country?

Mr. Cass. I should say about 38,000 miles.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What is the capital stock?

Mr. Cass. I should say about $2,000,000,000. Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your kind attention.

23738-PT 18-10-2

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM G. DOWS, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, CEDAR RAPIDS AND IOWA CITY RAILWAY, OF CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA.

Mr. Dows. Gentlemen, I don't know that I have anything very much to offer in addition to what Mr. Cass has said, but from reading those few lines in this bill it does seem to me that that would be the means of withdrawing all through rates from interurban railroads.

There seems to be a misapprehension on the part of some members of the committee as to what is meant when we say "electric interurban railroads." I am president of the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway, a line of railroad from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Iowa City, Iowa. It has its own freight terminals, both in Cedar Rapids and in Iowa City, which it owns. From these freight terminals it is built on a private right of way, 100 feet wide, and the rail and the construction is the same as of a steam railroad.

Now, we are perfectly capable of handling any and all kinds of freight in carload lots. The line bisects a quadrilateral, so to speak, which is formed by four roads; and we have towns on our line of road which are not served by any other railroad. In fact the nearest practical wagon route for one town is to Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, which would be 14 miles either way. We handle a great deal of freight, and when we built this road we endeavored to have the different railroads put in joint rates and through routes over our line, but they absolutely refused to do it. So we brought an action against the Chicago and Northwestern before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and after a hearing which was bitterly fought and went over a series of months, the commission ordered the rates put in, saying that we were able to handle any and all kinds of freight. Mr. STAFFORD. What is the decision?

Mr. Dows. The decision of the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway v. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway.

Mr. STAFFORD. When was it decided?

Mr. Dows. About a year ago; a little over.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that joint rate in effect now?

Mr. Dows. Yes, sir; but it is only in for two years, and the consequence is that if this bill passes they can withdraw it, and we do not think that would be fair; we have grain elevators, stock yards, and everything of that kind on our line of road.

Mr. KENNEDY. And you want these three lines stricken out?

Mr. Dows. Yes; I think they ought to be. What harm would it do to strike them out?

Mr. RICHARDSON. The commission would pass upon the road competent and qualified to do business and apply the through rate. You think that discretion ought to be left in the hands of the commission, and that it would not be left there if this paragraph should be left in?

Mr. Dows. Yes.

Mr. STAFFORD. Do you consider your line of electric railway an electric passenger railway, which is the limitation carried in this clause?

Mr. Dows. Now, the passenger revenue of the average interurban railroad is greater than the freight revenue. That is the reverse of

the steam railroads. For instance, on the Northwestern road, the passenger service is about 30 per cent of the gross and the freight service 70 per cent of the gross, and that is the reverse of the electric roads.

Mr. STAFFORD. The revenue does not determine the character of the railway, but the character of the service.

Mr. Dows. The reason why our passenger revenue is greater than our freight revenue is the character of the service we give. We give an hourly service. We stop anywhere along the line and pick up passengers with our passenger cars. The consequence is that that continuous service that we give practically all day long, for twenty hours of the day, makes our passenger revenue really greater than our freight revenue, notwithstanding our freight revenue is as large as the average small road in the State of Iowa.

Mr. STAFFORD. I suppose no one can guess what the construction of the court would be as to what would be meant by "passenger railway."

Mr. Dows. I don't think anyone could.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Is there not a very material difference between the construction of a steam railroad and that of an interurban railroad, in the character of the rails used?

Mr. Dows. No, sir; the type of the rail on our road is the standard for steam-railroad construction.

Mr. RICHARDSON. I thought the rails were much heavier on steam roads.

Mr. Dows. No, sir; we use the standard section rails, the same as the steam railroads use, and our bridges are the same; our wooden bridges are exactly of the same type and the same plan as those upon the Northwestern, upon the Milwaukee railroad, or upon any other road.

Mr. RICHARDSON. You do not carry as heavy freight loads as the steam railroads?

Mr. Dows. We handle cars of 110,000 pounds, or 55-ton cars.
The CHAIRMAN. What weight rail do you use?

Mr. Dows. We use the T rail, 70 pounds to the yard.

Mr. RICHARDSON. That is unusual, is it not?

Mr. Dows. No; the Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern Railway is the same, and the interurban railroads of Des Moines, Iowa, has the same class of construction.

Mr. RICHARDSON. As originally constructed and intended, the road was built for passenger traffic, wasn't it?

Mr. Dows. It is not, no; because the population is not dense. enough, but that they have to depend upon the freight business in order to exist.

Mr. KENNEDY. Do you have freight cars that you permit to go off of your line and go to their destination to be unloaded?

Mr. Dows. Yes, sir. We have tariffs over pretty near all of the different roads; we are in the different classifications, that is, of the trunk line tariffs, and we handle the standard equipment exactly the same. We have a physical connection in Cedar Rapids with the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul and the Chicago and Northwestern, and at Iowa City we connect with the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Are you equipped with freight cars sufficient to meet the demands of traffic, or do you rely upon the steam railroads for those cars?

Mr. Dows. We have some freight equipment of our own, but we have never found any difficulty in getting any amount of freight equipment that we want from the other roads.

Mr. RICHARDSON. That is where the steam railroads are complaining so much; about their cars?

Mr. Dows. We have never heard any complaint; they have never made any complaint to us. These interurban railroads stand ready to buy the freight equipment whenever it becomes necessary.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you object to a provision in the bill that if you interchanged business you should provide your proportion of equipment?

Mr. Dows. I don't think there would be any objection to that. The CHAIRMAN. Are the interurban railroads generally financially able to purchase the necessary equipment?

Mr. Dows. Yes; any one of them can buy them on what we call the car-trust plan.

Mr. ADAMSON. You are not to furnish cars for freight excepting that which originates on your line?

Mr. Dows. Say you have a car from the Illinois Central, you can load that back to the Illinois Central line. I use that merely as an illustration.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Suppose the Illinois Central is the connecting link between two great railroad systems; if you carry out your ideas fully, a car loaded on one of the steam systems could pass over your road to the connection and you would not object to that?

Mr. Dows. We would be glad to have them.

Mr. STAFFORD. What is the length of your line that is operated for freight purposes?

Mr. Dows. We call it 27 miles.

Mr. STAFFORD. How many freight cars is it equipped with?

Mr. Dows. I think we have twenty-odd cars, and they are all standards.

Mr. STAFFORD. Have you any locomotives?

Mr. Dows. No, sir.

Mr. STAFFORD. Under your franchise you are permitted to use that kind of power?

Mr. Dows. We can use anything of that kind; for instance, last fall there was a big football game between the Agricultural College at Ames and the university at Iowa City-Iowa City is the university town. We did not have electric equipment enough to handle the crowds, so I rented from one of the large trunk lines a complete steam train, with a passenger engine-even the engineer and fireman were furnished-and we operated that over the line.

Mr. STAFFORD. How many freight cars are owned by the electric railroads in Iowa?

Mr. Dows. I couldn't say.

Mr. STAFFORD. Can you give us the mileage of the electric railroads in Iowa that are engaged in freight business?

Mr. Dows. I should say 200 miles. Wouldn't you say that, Mr. Cass?

Mr. CASS. Well, I should say between 200 and 300, but nearer 300 than 200.