Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 1, March, 1906 — John Shaqi
Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 1, March, 1906Various
General
Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 1, March, 1906
Various
United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals
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?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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