Fifty Years of Public Service Part 26

"Since the pa.s.sage of the laws creating the railroad and warehouse commission, in 1871, Illinois has made very important advances toward the solution of the railroad problem.

"The questions involved in this problem have not only been before the people of this State, but in other States and countries.

"In England, after the railroad had become a fact, it was recognized as a public highway. The right of Parliament to fix rates for the transportation of pa.s.sengers and freight by railroad corporations was therefore a.s.serted, and schedules of rates were put into their charters. Those familiar with the subject need not be told that the attempt to establish rates in this manner was a failure. Then it was a.s.serted that compet.i.tion, if encouraged by the Government, would prove a remedy for the abuses with which the railroads were charged. The suggestion was acted upon. The Government encouraged the construction of competing lines. As a result, rates fell.

Compet.i.tion, however, finally began to entail disaster upon the compet.i.tors and compel them to become allies to escape destruction.

The compet.i.tors combined; railroads were consolidated; rival lines were united, and compet.i.tion was thus destroyed. The danger of great combinations of this kind, not only to the business interests of the country, but also to the State, was at once suggested, and occasioned alarm. This alarm resulted in a public opinion that the Government should own the railroads. But consolidation, to the surprise of the prophets of evil, did not result in higher rates. On the contrary, lower rates and higher dividends resulted.

"Thus by a logical process of attempt and failure to control railroad corporations, the conclusion was reached that wise policy required permission to such corporations to operate their railroads in their own way upon ordinary business principles. But at the same time a board of commissioners was wisely created and authorized to hear and determine complaints against railroad corporations, and to exercise other important powers. This board was created about five years ago; and the most notable feature in its career, says Charles Francis Adams, junior, is the very trifling call that seems to have been made upon it. The cases which come before it are neither numerous nor of great importance. It would, however, be unwholly safe to conclude from this fact that such a tribunal is unnecessary.

On the contrary, it may be confidently a.s.serted that no competent board of railroad commissioners clothed with the peculiar power of the English board, will, either there or anywhere else, have many cases to dispose of. The mere fact that a tribunal is there, that a machinery does exist for the prompt and final decision of that cla.s.s of questions put an end to them. They no longer arise.

"The process through which the public mind in America has pa.s.sed on the railroad question is not dissimilar to that through which the public mind of England pa.s.sed. But here compet.i.tion was relied on from the first. To all who asked for them railroad charters were granted. The result has been the construction of railroads in all parts of the country, many of them through districts of country without business, or even population, as well as between all business centres and through populous, fertile, and well cultivated regions. Free trade in railroad building, and the too liberal use of munic.i.p.al credit in their aid, has induced the building of some lines which are wholly unnecessary, and which crowd, duplicate, and embarra.s.s lines previously built and which were fully adequate to the needs of the community.

"In Illinois, railroad enterprises have been particularly numerous and have made the State renowned for having the most miles of railroad track--for being the chief railroad State.

"But compet.i.tion did not result according to public antic.i.p.ation.

The competing corporations worked without sufficient remuneration at competing points, and, to make good the losses resulting, were often guilty of extortion at the non-competing points. They discriminated against persons and places. Citizens protested against these abuses in vain. The railroad corporations, when threatened with the power of the Government, indulged in the language of defiance, and attempted to control legislation to their own advantage. At last public indignation became excited against them.

They did not heed it. They believed the courts would be their refuge from popular fury. The indignation of the people expressed itself in many ways and finally found utterance in the Const.i.tution of 1870. In this Const.i.tution may be found all the phases of opinion on the railroad question through which the English mind has run. The railroad is declared a public highway. The establishment of reasonable rates of charges is directed; compet.i.tion between railroads is recognized as necessary to the public welfare; and the General a.s.sembly is required to pa.s.s laws to correct abuses and to prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates and pa.s.senger tariffs on the different railroads of the State, and enforce such laws by adequate penalties to the extent, if necessary for that purpose, of forfeiture of their property and franchises.

"The Const.i.tution did more than this. To correct abuses of the interests of the farmers from whose fields warehous.e.m.e.n in combination with corporate common carriers had been drawing riches, it declared all elevators or structures where grain or other property was stored for a compensation, public warehouses, and expressly directed the General a.s.sembly to pa.s.s laws for the government of warehouses, for the inspection of grain, and for the protection of producers, s.h.i.+ppers, and receivers of grain and produce.

"Promptly after the adoption of the Const.i.tution the Legislature attempted to give these provisions vitality by the enactment of laws to carry them out. One of these created the Railroad and Warehouse Commission and imposed on it important duties. Another was an act to regulate public warehouses and warehousing. By this act other important duties were imposed upon the Railroad and Warehouse Commission."

After reviewing the attempt to enforce these laws the message continues:

"In 1873, the present law to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in rates charged for the transportation of pa.s.sengers and freight on railroads in this State was pa.s.sed. It was prepared and enacted with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of _Illinois_ vs. _C. and A. R. R._, fresh in the minds of the members of the General a.s.sembly, and every suggestion made by the court was observed.

"The Commission since the enactment of this statute has brought many suits against railroad corporations for violation of the law."

After reviewing the various cases I proceeded:

"In 1871, the Railroad and Warehouse Commission was established.

Its creation was resisted by both railroad corporations and public warehous.e.m.e.n, and after its organization they treated it with little consideration. They refused to recognize its authority, but after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States declaring the doctrine that the Government may regulate the conduct of its citizens to each other, and, when necessary, for the public good, the manner in which each shall use his own property, the railroad corporations and public warehous.e.m.e.n began to grow less determined in their opposition to the attempts to control them, until at this time there is very little opposition. They now give prompt attention to requests of the Commission for the correction of abuses called to its notice by their patrons; and thus the Commissioners not only settle questions arising between railroad corporations and those who patronize them, but it may as truthfully be said of this as of the English or Ma.s.sachusetts Commission, that the very fact of its existence has put an end to many of the abuses formerly practised by such corporations, and which were angrily complained of by the people. . . .

"It is a curious fact that the conclusion reached by the English statesmen in 1874, was reached in Illinois in 1873; the conclusion that railroad companies ought to have the right to control their own affairs, fix their own rates of transportation, be free from meddlesome legislation, and, as has been said, work out their own destiny in their own way, just so long as they show a reasonable regard for the requirements of the community."

After a.n.a.lyzing the law of 1873, referring to the procedure under it, to the decision of the courts, and the fact that the Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners made under it a schedule of maximum rates of charges, I said:

"The schedule will require revision from time to time, and this work can only be done by men who can give it their whole time, and who will become students of the great subject of transportation.

"Before action by the Supreme Court it has not been deemed advisable that the Commissioners should revise the schedule, and put the State thereby to what might be unnecessary expense; nor that they should multiply suits under the law of 1873, against railroad companies for similar offences to those set up in the cases now pending.

"Ever since its organization the board has been putting into operation new laws founded upon old principles applied to new facts and it has been compelled to walk with slow step. It has been required, in the a.s.sertion of its authority to go from one court to another, and await the approval by the Supreme Court of the legislation directed by the Const.i.tution of 1870.

"It has won a victory in the warehouse controversy and secured the judicial endors.e.m.e.nt of doctrines which in this age of concentration and monopoly, are absolutely necessary to the public welfare. . . .

"Leaving out of view the benefits that have resulted to the people by the mere fact of the existence of the Board, which has prevented many abuses that would have been committed save for its presence in the State, it has been at work, and useful. It has perfected the organization of the Grain Inspection Department at Chicago; it has gathered statistics in reference to transportation that are of very great benefit to the public; it has adopted the policy of railroad examinations with a view to security of life; and, in my judgment, the authority of the Commission ought to be enlarged so as to enable it to compel the railroad companies to improve their tracks and bridges, when, in the judgment of the Commission, such portions of railroads become unsafe. The Railroad Commissioners act as arbitrators between the railroad companies and their patrons; and in the Commissioners' report they say they have succeeded in settling most of the complaints made to them in a manner satisfactory to all the parties to the controversies.

"In my judgment if the Commission were dispensed with by the Legislature, difficulties would soon arise, agitation would commence again, and controversies would run riot. New legislation would follow, another board of some kind would soon be created, and the track we have just pa.s.sed over would be again travelled by the people's representatives.

"The Board should be sustained in the interest of all the people.

Instead of being destroyed it should be strengthened. It should not only have the authority with which it is now vested, but more.

It should be made a legal arbitrator in all matters of controversy between railroad companies and warehouses and their patrons; and it should be required to make examination of roads, and be invested with authority to compel reparation of unsafe and defective bridges, culverts, track, and rolling-stock.

"(Signed) S. M. Cullom, "Governor."

My experience, as Chief Executive of the State, with the practical workings of the Railroad and Warehouse Law, clearly demonstrated to me that a State statute, no matter how drastic it might be, was utterly inadequate to meet the evils complained of, and that effective regulation must be Federal and not State, or probably Federal and State combined. Some of the States had attempted to exercise control over interstate traffic which originated in the State, but it seemed perfectly clear from a long line of decisions of the Supreme Court, beginning with _Gibbons_ vs. _Ogden_, and continuing with _Reading Railway_ vs. _Pennsylvania; Baltimore and Ohio_ vs. _Maryland_, and many other cases, that the States as such had no control over interstate commerce. But it was not until our own Illinois case (_Wabash Railroad_ vs. _Illinois_), that the Supreme Court settled it once and for all. It was clearly stated in that case that the power of Congress was exclusive, and the Court said that, "notwithstanding whatever _dicta_ might appear in other cases, this court holds now and has never consciously held otherwise, that a statute of a State intended to regulate or tax or to impose any restriction upon the transmission of persons or property from one State to another is not within the cla.s.s of legislation which the States may enact in the absence of legislation by Congress, and that such statutes are void."

This decision of the Supreme Court was rendered just about the time I was elected to the United States Senate, and I then and there determined that I would make it one of my great aims in the Senate to secure the enactment of a Federal statute regulating interstate commerce.

It would seem astonis.h.i.+ng that the Commerce clause of the Const.i.tution should have remained dormant, as it did for nearly a century.

Aside from two unimportant acts, no statute had been pa.s.sed under it from the beginning of the Government until the Act to Regulate Commerce was pa.s.sed in 1887.

Not even a serious attempt had been made to pa.s.s an act for the regulation of interstate commerce. Bills were introduced from Congress to Congress and laid aside; some investigations were made --as, for instance, the Windom investigation by a select committee of the House in 1873--but it all came to naught. It seemed that no one man, either in the Senate or House, had made it his business to secure the pa.s.sage of such an act.

Very fortunately, as I see it now, when I first came to the Senate, I received no important committee a.s.signments. Having been in public life for many years, member of Congress, Governor of my State, I naturally felt that I would be properly taken care of without appealing to my older colleagues for a.s.sistance. Even my own colleague, General Logan, did not interest himself in the matter. I attended the caucus when the committee announcements were made, and observing that I received nothing of any consequence, I addressed the caucus and protested that I had not been treated properly. Later Senator Edmunds resigned his place as a regent of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution and I was appointed to succeed him in that position.

I was a.s.signed, however, to the Committee on Railroads--which was then what we know now in the Senate as a non-working committee.

I determined that the committee should have something to do, and I immediately became active in securing the consideration of an act for the regulation of interstate commerce. I drew up a bill, introduced it, had it referred to the committee, and finally secured its consideration and report to the Senate. No one paid any particular attention to what I was doing until then. When the bill was reported to the Senate, and I was pus.h.i.+ng and urging and doing everything in my power to secure its consideration, Senator Allison, always my friend, always wanting to a.s.sist me in any way in his power, came to me one day and said:

"Cullom, we know nothing about this question; we are groping in the dark; and I believe that there ought to be a select committee of the Senate appointed to investigate the question, to go out among the people, take testimony, and find out what they know about it,--what the experts know, what the railroad officials know, what public opinion generally is, and report their conclusions to the Senate at the beginning of the next session. I am willing to help you secure the pa.s.sage of a resolution with that end in view."

This was perfectly agreeable to me and, on March 17, 1885, a resolution of the Senate, introduced by me, was adopted. This resolution provided--

"That a select committee of five Senators be appointed to investigate and report upon the subject of the regulation of the transportation by railroad and water routes in connection or in compet.i.tion with said railroads of freights and pa.s.sengers between the several States, with authority to sit during the recess of Congress, and with power to summon witnesses, and to do whatever is necessary for a full examination of the subject, and report to the Senate on or before the second Monday in December next. Said committee shall have power to appoint a clerk and stenographer, and the expenses of such investigation shall be paid from the appropriation for expenses of inquiries and investigations ordered by the Senate."

The committee, of which I was made chairman, was appointed in due course, my colleagues being Senator O. H. Platt, of Connecticut; Senator Warner Miller, of New York; Senator Arthur Pugh Gorman, of Maryland; and Senator Isham G. Harris, of Tennessee. Leaving out any reference to myself, the selection was regarded as having been most judicious and suitable.

And here let me digress to say a few words in reference to my colleagues on that committee.

Senator Warner Miller was a strong man intellectually, and a good business man. He had succeeded Senator T. C. Platt on March 4, 1881, and readily took his place in the Senate as one of its influential members, although he served but one term. He was a valuable man as a member of the committee, and took a very prominent part in the debates preceding the pa.s.sage of the act.

Senator Gorman had a remarkable public career. Without the advantages of influential family, without wealth, with only limited education, through his own exertions alone he arose from the position of a page in the United States Senate to the position of Senator and leader of his party in the Senate. He was a _protege_, friend, and follower of that ill.u.s.trious son of Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas.

He was one of the most sagacious politicians of his day. By his shrewd management of the Cleveland campaign he secured the defeat of Mr. Blaine and the election of Mr. Cleveland. His charming personality, his suavity of manner, his magnetic influence over men with whom he came into contact, combined with his marked ability, made it easy for him to retain the difficult position of a leader of his great party. He enjoyed in the highest degree the respect and confidence of every Senator with whom he served, on both sides of the chamber, and specially was his influence felt in securing the support of the Democratic Senators in the pa.s.sage of the Act of 1887.

Senator Harris, of Tennessee, was a very useful member of the Senate, and was a man possessed of more than ordinary ability.

His ability, perhaps, was not as great as Senator Gorman's, although he was a very influential and highly respected member of the Senate.

He was a hard worker; and one trait in particular that I remember about him was, he never failed to attend promptly on time the meeting of any committee of which he was a member. Indeed, I do not know of any man with whom I have served in the Senate, aside from my respected colleague, Senator Frye, who was so punctual.

He was a man of convivial habits, and used to poke considerable fun at me because I would not drink or play poker. At the time when the select committee was to meet in Memphis, the home of Senator Harris, the prominent business men of that place waited on him and told him they understood a very eminent committee was coming there in a few days, and they would like to show them some courtesies.

Harris replied that he did not know who would be there; that Senator Platt would not, and he did not believe Senator Gorman would--in fact, he did not believe any one would be there, excepting the chairman and himself; and so far as the chairman, Senator Cullom, was concerned, they could not do anything for him, as he did not drink or smoke, and was "one of the d.a.m.nedest, poorest card-players he had ever known." So, about all the entertaining they could do for him would be to show him about the city.

Many amusing stories were told of him. When I called the committee together, preliminary to starting out on our tour, I told them that I would be very glad to allow them everything within reason that was necessary, but the Government would not pay for their whiskey and cigars. Harris promptly replied: "That's right, Mr. Chairman.

So far as I am concerned, if I can't get my whiskey by standing around the bar when other people are drinking, I will pay for it myself."

When the committee were in Minneapolis, we were sitting at a long table at dinner; I was at one end, and Harris was at the other, facing me. An old soldier came up to speak to me, and glancing down toward the other end of the table, he asked: "Is n't that old Harris of Tennessee?" When I replied that it was, he continued: "Well, well! The last time I saw him, he was wearing a linen- duster, riding a mule, and going South like h.e.l.l."

Harris was a man of the most rigid honesty. He not only rendered valuable a.s.sistance in conducting the investigation, especially through the South, which section of the country he particularly represented, but took a prominent part in the debates and generally performed his full share toward securing the pa.s.sage of the act.

Of Senator O. H. Platt I have already written.