Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

* Weekly Jeffersonian. Vol. IL It ? B’ Bfc i !|l ill 0 io ! ihlß' JO JS3 1 1 yS'- /Z /. *, I I 1 ||l|! |g| jWwfj i Ju. fey Bx MIK WWw P’? Iwf wf OWBlW^^qt.dois Wtf. «K wWWMfwOI <r Ci M /z /HJuIjKKmX ■ Jrifa .jy^KpMß^feggy z //fIaWMI %r^<k. jx’ • W'< » '■ > ■' When a man has the misfortune to live ahead of his time, and asks Society to reorganize itself on a more just basis, we call him a traitor, an anarchist. We hang him or crucify him. < Then we allow corrupt politicians, political leaders, who have no conscience, no principle, but that of relieving the masses of what they earn, marshall us to the polls like a flock of sheep—and once elected proceed to legislate in the interest of those who pay the most. Yet we seem to enjoy this political bunco. We call it ‘‘high civilization." —G. Nye. Roosebelt to Tight Obercapitalization: Washington, Jan. 29. —The men who have been trying to get the president to issue a statement moderating his attitude on the regulation of corpora tions are shortly to receive a severe shock. The president is now at work upon a plan of railroad rate regulation and if he carries it out the light made against him over the Hepburn bill will be a mere summer breeze compared with what will follow. The first suggestion will be made in a letter which the president is now drawing up with the intention of send ing It to the interstate commerce commission, although he is quite likely to send it to congress in the end. It will deal with a question which was not touched in the rate fight last year —the question of capitalization, the valuation of railroad properties, and the cost of operation, all to be ascer tained and used as a basis for deter mining rates. The idea is to give the railroads a fair return on actual invest ments and to eliminate profits deriv- A Demoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government. Atlanta, Ga., Thursday, February 7, 1907. ed from overcapitalization. Such a proposition undoubtedly will arouse the railroads as nothing else has done, and the president will have on his hands the fight of his life. The president, however, intends to take up the question in his usual fashion and to make it the subject of next winter’s battle. The understanding is that the communication to the interstate com merce commission will be merely the first gun in a campaign which will oc cupy the attention of congress at its next session. That will be a long ses sion, ending at the outset of a presi idential campaign, and there will be a fine arena for a fight. The striking similarity between these plans of the president’s and Senator La Follette’s ideas leads to the conclu sion that Mr. Roosevelt has taken up the Wisconsin senator’s propositions and decided to advocate them. La Follette has been fighting for just such a plan since he entered congress. He offered amendments last year along these lines when the rate bill was up. He has since drawn a bill and has made speeches about it. The interstate commerce commis sion has found itself handicapped by its inability to ascertain a basis for ratemaking. It has absolutely no way of making such determinations except on complaints, and even then has no real basis without being able to de termine the cost of transportation. It is understood that the commission has reported this fact to the president, with the result that he investigated Senator La Follette’s plan. The La Follette idea, as expressed in amendments he offered to the Hep burn bill last year, and embodied in senate bill 7,399, now in the commit tee on interstate commerce, is that until the fundamental basis for rate making is established by ascertain ing the value of railroad property and the cost of transportation it is worse than useless to expect the interstate commerce commission to afford any ad- Would 'Base Railroad Rates On the Actual Investment. equate relief to complainants. His bill directs the commission to investigate and ascertain the fair val ue of the property of every railroad engaged in interstate commerce. The commission is authorized to employ such engineers and other assistants as may be necessary, and is directed, af ter ascertaining such values, to keep itself fully informed as to the values of extensions and additions, so as to keep its valuation of each railroad’s property properly revised and up to date. On contests of valuations by railroads provision is made for hear ings before the commission. In his speech on the rate bill last year Mr. La Follette cited a decision of the supreme court in which it said: “We hold that the basig of all cal culations as to the reasonableness of rates to be charged by a corporation maintaining a highway opder legisla tive sanction must be the fair value of the property being used by it’ for the (Continued on page 12.) * No. 3.