Commission would refuse to adopt this time-honored principle and would aim primarily not at profit to the railroads, but at just and impartial rates—it is this knowledge which more than anything else impels the railroads to such strenuous opposition to any proposal for the fixing of rates by a public board. The matter is of such moment that, when I asked one of our leading railroad presidents what would happen if the rate-making power were put in the hands of a commission, he said: “The stake would be so great that the commission would have to be controlled, that’s all.” The railroads have the Senate, and the Senate must confirm all nominations to the Interstate Commission. Aside from the appointment of Judge Cooley all nominations to the Commission from 1887 down have been due, said this railroad president, not to any special fitness for the work, but to political pull. If a commissioner is appointed from a certain State, the senators from that State regard the place as a part of their patronage, and when the term of his appointment expires they insist on the nomination of another man from their State. They say: “The place belongs to our State,” and it is always their man, a man they want on the board, who is presented by them for nomination. Vermont for example has had three members on the Commission in succession, Walker, Veazie, and Prouty; each time a vacancy has occurred in the Vermont representation it has been filled at the dictation of the senators from that State; “even President Roosevelt did not appoint for fitness. When a vacancy occurred he did not look for the man best fitted to serve on such a Commission, but appointed Senator Cockrell of Missouri, a nice old man of 70 that everybody liked, but without any special qualification for the work. The election went to the Republicans in Missouri, so Cockrell couldn’t go back to the Senate. He has many friends. The senators all like him, Republicans as well as Democrats, and they said to Roosevelt: ‘You must do something for Cockrell; here’s a democratic vacancy on the Interstate Commission, put him in there,’ and Roosevelt put him in.” This railroad president is a man of the highest character and of very extensive information. Whether or no he is rightly informed in respect to the appointment of commissioners, it is clear that the railroad representation in the Senate could bring tremendous pressure to bear to secure the appointment of men approved by railroad interests, that they could block the appointment of any other sort of men even if nominated, and that the temptation to exert this power to secure men who could be controlled would be practically irresistible if the Commission were given the rate-making power.