The railways of the country should be put completely under the Interstate Commerce Commission and removed from the domain of the Anti-Trust Law. The power of the Commission should be made thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise complete supervision and control over the issue of securities as well as over the raising and lowering of rates. As regards rates, at least, this power should be summary. The power to investigate the financial operations and accounts of the railways has been one of the most valuable features in recent legislation. Power to make combinations and traffic agreements should be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the permission of the Commission being first gained and the combination or agreement being published in all its details.

This seems to me entirely sound. The fact is that in the Trans-Missouri cases, in 1897, the minority opinion raised the question as to whether the provisions of the Act of 1890 were intended to apply to contracts between interstate carriers, entered into for the purpose of securing fairness in their dealings with each other, and tending to protect the public against improper discrimination and sudden changes in rates, and whether that statute was intended to abrogate the power of railway companies to make contracts that were expressly sanctioned by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. It

was pointed out that the Interstate Commerce Act was intended to regulate interstate commerce transported by railway carriers, and that the Act of 1890 was a general law not referring to carriers of interstate commerce. The minority opinion, concurred in by four justices of the court, was, that there was no intention on the part of Congress to abrogate, in whole or in part, the provisions of the Act of 1887 by the general Act of 1890, and that the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 expressed the purpose of Congress to deal with a complicated, particular subject requiring special legislation, and that the act was an initiation of a policy by Congress looking to the development and working-out of a harmonious system to regulate interstate transportation. There is grave doubt as to whether Congress ever intended that contracts for the transportation of persons or property from one State to another should be covered by the provisions of the Sherman Act of 1890.

It may fairly be added that the power now possessed by the office of the Attorney-General over interstate transportation is one that should not exist. Under the penal section of the Sher

man Act, the Attorney-General is practically given the power to compel the readjustment of the ownership of railroad properties under threat of criminal prosecution of individuals. This power, rightly exercised by one Administration, might be wrongly exercised by another, and two individuals holding the office of Attorney-General might reach different conclusions upon the same state of facts. Our railroad systems should not be at the mercy of any individual, but should be under the absolute control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and once under such control should be free from the harassment and great expense both to them and to the Government of suits under the Sherman Act which can only confuse the situation, already sufficiently complex. The transportation business should be and must be, if efficient, a government-regulated monopoly.

Roosevelt and the Negro

Several incidents in Roosevelt's Administration brought the race question into great promi

nence.

In October, 1901, he invited Booker Washington to dine at the White House. The South

uttered angry protests and many people in the North condemned the act.

The Memphis "Commercial Appeal" said: "President Roosevelt has committed a blunder that is worse than a crime.”

The New Orleans "Statesman" said that "his action was little less than a studied insult to the South."

The Memphis "Scimiter" said that it was "the most damnable outrage that has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States."

On Memorial Day in 1902, Roosevelt, in his address, condemned lynching, which the South regarded as a sectional utterance.

The President appointed Dr. Crum, a negro, Collector of the Port of Charleston. A great protest was made, and Republican Senators asked him to withdraw the appointment, which he refused to do, saying that if the matter were not acted upon he would make a recess appointment. This he did.

In a letter to a citizen of Charleston, South Carolina, who protested against the appointment of Dr. Crum, the President stated his general principle as follows:

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I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that the doorway of hope the door of opportunity is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my contentions, be fundamentally wrong. If, as you hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not yet fit in point of character and influence to hold such positions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a premium upon the effort among them to achieve the character and standing which will fit them.

An article by John J. Vertrees in the June, 1903, number of the "Olympian,” a magazine then published in Nashville, Tennessee, contained the following comment on Roosevelt's negro appointments:

Mr. McKinley appointed negroes to office because they were negroes — thus making, as all perceived, a mere political play which was expected as a matter of course, and therefore gave no concern, but Mr. Roosevelt appoints regardless of race and because negroes are equal men - thus revealing a faith in that "solidarity" which Anglo-Saxons know can come only through the mongrelizing of their race. This is the reason why the negro looks to the President as a deliverer and the people of the South turn from him as one reereant and irresponsive to the instincts and appeals of his own blood and race.