In the letter just quoted, Hon. Pope Brown repeats the statement that
the railroads _did_ treat with contempt the order of the Commission;
and he relates a conversation he had with one of the representatives of
the Southern Railroad, in which that official gave, as a reason for not
making the required improvements at Flovilla, that _the people of that
county had given verdicts against the Railroad_.
Yet the railroad candidate for Governor has deliberately tried to deceive
the people of Georgia into believing that when the Railroad Commission
ordered a new depot for Flovilla, the railroads promptly obeyed the order
and built a new depot right away.
Poor little rooster—crowed too quick.
* * * * *
In my article, it was stated that the Flovilla case was but one out of
many that could be mentioned. Since Clark Howell undertakes to prove
to the people of Georgia that the railroads are good, law-abiding
citizens, I will mention some other instances in which they violate the
law every day of their lives, persistently, deliberately, insolently,
contemptuously.
The law requires them to post bulletins of delayed trains _at every
station in advance of the delayed train_, in order that passengers may
be put upon notice. This law is of great consequence to the traveler.
If the train is one, two, or three hours late, and the traveler can
learn that fact upon his arrival at the depot, he can dispose of himself
to the best advantage during the interval. But suppose the train is
three hours late and the passenger does not know it? Suppose he asks
the agent, and gets his head bit off with a sharp, curt, offensive,
indefinite answer? He then hangs around in the waiting room; he is afraid
to leave the depot for fear the train will come while he is away; yet he
may have to sit there, anxious and suffering, for three mortal hours;
when, if the bulletin had been posted, he could have escaped some of the
inconveniences of the situation.
The law puts a penalty of twenty dollars upon the railroad for each
violation of this rule; and there isn’t a day when hundreds of violations
of it do not occur in Georgia. Not ten per cent of the agents of the
railroads obey this law. Ninety per cent of them constantly violate it.
_Ask any drummer who travels through the state!_ Talk about obedience to
the little one-hoss Railroad Commission? Why, here is a statute of the
Code of Georgia, passed by the sovereign Legislature and signed by the
Governor, and the railroads treat it as a dirty piece of waste paper.
In his letter, ex-Chairman Brown says that the railroads have never
put into operation an order of the Commission as to freight rates,
unless that order was absolutely satisfactory to themselves. He gives
an instance, at Pitts, Georgia, where the railroads went directly to
the contrary of the orders of the Commission. While Judge Atkinson was
Chairman of the Commission, an order was passed requiring trains to quit
stopping one or two hundred feet away from the depot, and to stop at the
station, for the convenience of passengers.
Ex-Chairman Brown says that this order “_has been absolutely ignored by
all the roads_ that have come under my observation.”
In Chairman Brown’s official report, he calls attention to instance after
instance where the railroads had ignored the rules, the decisions, the
orders of the Commission.
_I challenge Clark Howell to deny the truth of that report._
* * * * *
What Georgian doesn’t remember with indignant shame the threat of the
Southern Railroad, voiced by its lawyer, Mr. Ed. Baxter, when he “served
notice” on the Railroad Commission that the Railroads were tired of being
pestered by our little one-hoss Commission?
Said Mr. Baxter: “The Railroad Commission _may well understand_ that
they have reached the length of their tether; _henceforth we will put
ourselves under the ægis of the Federal Court_.”
That was nice, dutiful language, wasn’t it?
That sounds like obedience to the Railroad Commission, doesn’t it?
Here were these Wall Street law-breakers, who had for two years been
defying the Commission on the Flovilla matter, who had ignored their
rulings on the stoppage of passenger trains, who had continually refused
to obey the law requiring them to post bulletins of delayed trains,
who, at Pitts, had acted contrary to the orders of the Commission, and
who had never accepted a freight rate decision which was not just what
they wanted—and their lawyer had the insolence to serve notice on the
Commission that if it bothered his Wall Street clients further, he
would turn his back upon it and seek that unfailing haven of Corporate
rascality, the Federal Courts!