Ex Parte 103 (Cont'd)

Candy, coal and chemicals, soap and scrap iron, fertilizer, leather, glass, paper, old rubber and garden truck were some of the things Interstate Commerce Commissioners in Washington pondered last week when opponents of the railroads' petition for a 15% freight rate increase began to present their rapid-fire testimony (TIME, July 27, Aug. 3). Shippers and manufacturers popped up and down in the witness stand to oppose Ex Parte 103 faster than the Press could keep track of them. The gist of their argument: if rail rates went up they, the rate payers, would divert more & more of their freight traffic to motor trucks and the steam carriers would be heavy losers. To this threat was frequently added another, namely, the removal of factories to tidewater where the producers could throw their transportation business to ship lines.

The regulatory commissions of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas clubbed together to ask the I. C. C. to dismiss the railroads' petition. They argued that the Federal commission had no legal authority to up freight rates on a mere showing of financial emergency and that, in addition, the roads had offered no evidence that such an increase would improve their revenues and credit. The I. C. C. postponed consideration of this joint request.

Louis John Taber, master of the National Grange, declared a 15% rate increase would complete the ruin of agriculture by taking $150,000,000 from U. S. farmers. Arthur Hale, chairman of the Coal Exporters' Association, said a 2,000,000-ton-per-year business would cease if coal rates to ocean ports were upped. The Virginia Corporation Commission sent witnesses to Washington who contended that the railroads' complaints about their credit position had done them more damage than the actual drop in their earnings.

But support for the railroads' rate plea finally came last week from the "Big Four" Brotherhoods (Railway Conductors, Locomotive Engineers, Railroad Trainmen, Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen). Mindful of the carriers' threat to cut wages unless they won a rate increase, the presidents of these potent labor organizations jointly declared that they felt "such action will have a beneficial effect on general business conditions."

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