of the committee, and they wanted the bill loaded down with extreme measures so that we should have to repeal it in deference to public judgment hereafter; but I told them, as I told the Senate, that I was not to be made use of for any such purpose, that I wanted a bill that would further the interests of the people so far as we could make one and not one that would be absurd on its face and that we should be called upon to repeal at the very next session of Congress.

The committee acted upon the theory that this bill was as strong a one as we could stand upon, and in our judgment and in the judgment of the country would be sustained by actual enforcement after it became a law.

Mr. BLAIR. Mr. President, I do not suppose that the country generally is aware of the extent to which even the agricultural population of the Alleghany and Eastern States are dependent upon the agricultural productions of the West for their own sustenance. I do not believe that the agricultural population of New England produces more than one-half of what it consumes. In my own State, while I have not the figures, from general observation I think that at least three-fourths of all the wheat and at least one-half of all the corn consumed are brought from the great West. What is true of the agricultural population is of course to a greater extent true of the manufacturing population and of the manufacturing interest generally. If the manufacturing States of the East were not able to command the cheap agricultural productions of the far Northwest it would be under existing conditions entirely impossible for them to maintain their industries. If this bill should become a law, and in its practical enforcement it should have the result to destroy the competition which now exists from the great centers of the West in the transportation of agricultural productions easterly, in my belief it would add at least 25 per cent. to the ordinary expenses of the necessaries of life to the working, the manufacturing, the laboring people throughout the Atlantic slope and the Eastern States. I do not believe that I exaggerate at all.

I have alluded to the extent to which even the agricultural population is dependent upon the great commodities of the West for its own maintenance, the maintenance of its own industry. The cattle that are fatted, the hogs that are fatted, and the meat production of the East are dependent very largely upon the agricultural productions of the West for their support. It is not that we eat the meat killed in the West alone, but that we use the corn and other productions of the West to fat our own pork, to fat our own cattle, to maintain our own working stock during the winter and in the summer season in the performance of the labor on the farms and in other ways. So a bill which tends

to increase the cost of the necessaries of life to the East is one most severely and directly in the way of their prosperity.

The East is a great competing point just as the West is a great competing point, and they have the same relation to each other that New York and Chicago have to each other, or that London and the great Northwest have to each other, and we can speak of these great sections as competing points, and any law which tends to destroy this natural and healthy competition must strike directly at the industries of the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic slope alike.

This fourth section of the bill as it came from the committee seemed to me quite objectionable. I think the law will be better, if the bill is to become a law, without the fourth section. Still, I would have been willing to have supported the bill as it came from the committee.

With my present views of the merits of the measure and its inevitable effect on the prosperity of the country, especially of my own section, I do not see how I can vote for this measure as it now stands.

It is certainly desirable that there be something in the way of a commission, that there be some tribunal that can at all events carry the force of strong and intelligent and impartial opinion in the direction of the removal of discriminations and abuses that have grown up in the business of transportation. That is not only desirable but it seems to me something that is almost indispensable. But when we undertake to go further and to provide in a law for that which will build up the Central States, as they seem to imagine, in their industries by striking down the valley of the Mississippi and the Northwest and the great manufacturing interests that belong to some extent with the agriculture of the East, we are entirely outside of the proper legislation which should originate and be enacted in this bill. It is better to do nothing at all.

It has been suggested that perhaps there may be some reconsideration of the vote of yesterday by which the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia may be removed from the bill, that the bill may be left as it was originally. If that can be done, while I am not so sure of the most glorious results from the passage of the measure, still I would support it; I would be glad to support it. I think it is a tribute to public sentiment that we should pay in the direction of experiment as to what may in the end be wise legislation, such regulations as in the end will relieve the evils of which we complain.

But this is a delicate matter; the business of the country is already sufficiently disturbed, and a measure of this kind which is to add, as I profoundly believe, at least 25 per cent. to the cost of the necessaries of life for the laboring people and the manufacturing laborers of this country, is not easily to be enacted into a law. If it should ever be done, let it be done later when there is more profit to labor, when all agricultural productions are paying more to those who produce them than now, and when the country is in a condition to endure disturbance which may be prolonged not only months but years as a result of this day's legislation.

This is all I care to say, Mr. President.

I am anxious to support some measure, but it is better to do nothing than to do a dangerous thing.

Mr. CALL. Mr. President, this is certainly a very important measure, and before it is enacted into a law it ought to be subject to very careful consideration.

If it be true that there is in the provision adopted on the motion of the Senator from West Virginia anything that would interfere with the commerce of the people of Kansas, with the transportation of the productions of the West to the seaboard that they may be taken to a foreign market, it ought not to be adopted. But before we arrive at that conclusion we must arrive at it not from mere declaration of opinion but from examination of the provisions of the law.

What is it that the Senator from West Virginia has proposed? The original bill, as I stated when I first took the floor this morning, provided that upon any line of railroad there should be no greater charge for a short distance than for a longer one from the same point of departure. Now, what did that mean? That meant that on freight starting from the same place, over the same line, and in the same direction there

should be no greater charge for a short haul than for a long one, but that for one mile there might be charged as much as for a thousand miles or ten thousand miles, that the limit was that it should not be greater for the mile than it was for the ten thousand miles.

Now, we have stricken out the words "from the same original point of departure." What effect has it? It simply leaves the provision that to charge more for one mile than for a thousand miles on any part of that line, without reference to where the goods start from, whether at one place or another place, leaving out "the same point of departure" and starting from different points of departure, there may be as much charged for one mile as for a thousand or ten thousand miles. This provision applies to every railroad, to every line.

How is it going to affect the products of the farmer in Kansas injuriously to say that whenever on that line of interstate commerce starting from different points of departure no greater charge shall be made for a short distance, for one mile, than for the whole distance, say from Ghicago to New York? But the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia allows that amount to be imposed upon any distance of transportation. If it be a part of a mile or a whole mile, the rate for the entire route may be imposed upon it.

Now, what does the Senator from Iowa propose? He proposes that it shall not be understood by this section in this bill that companies may be allowed to charge as much for the short distance as for the long. They may charge within a fraction as much. Suppose the charge is 10 cents and they charge within 1 mill of the 10 cents; the law authorizes them to do it. It simply is that in reference to the provision of the bill which seems to be acceptable to every one, that there shall be no unreasonable charges, no unjust charges; that the standard of reason and justice in the law shall not be declared to be that they may charge as much for 10,000 miles as for 1 mile. That is the only effect of the amendment of the Senator from Iowa.

But the Senator from Kansas made a point, and the Senator from Iowa reiterated it, that it would be unjust to the people of the West, a discrimination against them. Let us see what is the proposition. That the local business shall bear the entire cost of transportation; that the people of the intermediate points shall pay the whole and the people at the terminal points pay nothing. That is the tendency of the argument. Everybody will admit that would be improper, that it is impossible. One community ought not to be made to bear the expense of transporting the products of another. If there be a difference requiring a smaller proportion per mile of the whole cost for a long distance than a short, still there is even on this basis a proportion which it is just should be borne equally by everything transported and by every community, whether far or near. It will not be just that the terminal points shall make use of the road at the cost of the people doing the local business and deriving no profit from the through business, but paying for having the through freights undersell their own products. Mr. BLAIR. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question? Does he not recognize the fact that the local business is everything; that these great competing points are far separated from each other, and that every community has to do its own local business? Then where is the hardship of which he complains? The people in these intermediate States all have their local business. We have it in New England, they have it in the far West. The burdens of the railroads, the local burdens, are the same every where, but this matter of the through trans

portation of which I was speaking is another matter altogether. But does the Senator think it is right, when each community takes care of its own burden, that these widely separated communities like the far West and the far East should have an additional one imposed upon them for the benefit of the intermediate States?

Mr. CALL. I do not think so. The difficulty is that the Senator does not take hold of the subject. The proposition is that the shorthaul rate being allowed to be as great as the long-haul rate, it may be less than the cost of transportation over the long distance, and thus make the local business pay for it and pay for having their own freight burdened with a greater cost and a higher price than the through freight. Thus the through freight will go through free, and the local freight reach market with the cost of the through freight added to it. Does the Senator think this would be right?

Mr. BLAIR. It is not proposed that it shall be as great as the longhaul rate. It is simply an india-rubber provision with reference to that left to the discretion of the parties interested or to such consequences as result from business relations, nothing more. But the ques

tion I put to the Senator is this, does he not recognize that all parts of the country are burdened with the support of their local transportation? And in the nature of things it must be higher than that which is imposed upon the great through transportation of the country. Mr. CALL. Yes, I recognize that.

Mr. BLAIR. And is not the effect of the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia and the proposition of the Senator from Florida an effort to fasten upon the through business of the country the proper expenditure that is chargeable to the local transportation? Is it not that? Mr. CALL. Not at all; on the contrary it is to equalize, to make people pay their just proportion, to make the farmer in Kansas pay his reasonable and proper proportion of the cost of transportation. It is not to say that the long distance shall not have a smaller rate of charge, but that it shall pay a reasonable proportion, and the intermediate points pay a reasonable proportion.

There must be some regulation as to a fair and just apportionment upon the productions of the extreme terminal points, as Kansas on the one side and Florida on the other. The evidence gathered before the Interstate Commerce Committee shows that nearly every business man testified to the necessity of such a rule. In the State of Iowa, an intelligent citizen, a machimst and representative man, Mr. Loughran, appeared and testified unequivocally in favor of the just apportionment both for the through rate and for the short haul or local rate, the through business and the local business, showing the injurious effect on intermediate points of imposing the cost of the through freights in addition to the cost of the local business on them.

That is the proposition to be considered. Does it attain this purpose and remedy this evil to say you may charge as much for a ten thousand mile haul as for one mile? Does it affect the question at all? We all recognize that in this transportation from extreme points to the sea there must be a different rate provided, but what rate-what proportion? That is a very plain proposition. As was said by the Senator from Kansas, railroads are intended to overcome distance.

Mr. ALLISON. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question? Mr. CALL. Yes, sir.

Mr. ALLISON. Does the Senator state that we in the Senate can fix the exact proportion or in any sense fix it? That is what he is undertaking to do.

Mr. CALL. I do not; but I think if the railroads can make a system of pooling that destroys competition, if they can unify the transportation of the country, the Congress of the United States ought to be able to use that instrumentality if necessary or some other to do by law what they do habitually and conclusively, for it is an established fact in this testimony that the system of pooling by the railroads themselves not only destroys competition but fixes the rates and imposes the rates upon the local business of the country; and the question is whether the proportion is a satisfactory one, whether the proportion that the railroads have imposed upon the local business is a proper proportion to be paid in respect to that paid for the through business.

That is all the question there is in it; and if we can not satisfy and solve that problem, if we must allow, according to the evidence from Pennsylvania which I read yesterday, such a rate of transportation as will drive the agricultural population from the rich lands of Pennsylvania, or anywhere else, to reach a terminal point from which the transportation is so much cheaper that they can not compete with it in agricultural products, then we can do nothing, then the question how we shall prevent that discrimination as against one place or another that will be hurtful to existing interests, whether commerce or agriculture, must be answered by saying that it is not in our power, and the report of the committee is entirely wrong, and the bill we are discussing of no practical use, and we had better lay it on the table and waste no further time in its consideration.

Competition has failed to do it. If it has not, then we do not need this law, then the testimony taken by this Interstate Commerce Committee is a failure and is untrue, every word of it. If you do need it, then arrive at it by some practical process, and that is the proper way to prevent that discrimination against the intermediate point. If you say that it is sufficient to declare that you shall not charge more for 1 mile than for 10,000 miles, then you have arrived at a practical result, but I say that it is not so. And I am in favor of doing a little more now, and declare that the bill shall not authorize them to charge as much. I recognize the merits of the bill. It is a step in the right direction. It is asserting the duty and the power of Congress to legislate against improper discrimination, to arrive at some result by which all the different portions of the country will be equally protected and no advantage given or taken.

As I said before, there is a difference between through business, a difference between long distance, between productions which are to be sent across the sea and to be distributed elsewhere, and local business; but there is a fact that you must consider, that such a system of rates as will impose the whole or an unfair proportion of the cost of transportation on the local business of the interior is unjust; and that is the great difficulty complained of. The testimony that I read yesterday from a very intelligent man upon a very careful computation and estimate of figures was that $17,000,000 were paid annually by the people of the Eastern States to keep up local business for the through transportation, and the question is how to adjust a reasonable porportion to rest upon the through business of the country and how much on the local business. I am aware of the difficulties of the subject, but the country demands legislation by Congress, and it is an imperative neces