Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

"I submit that the majority of the assaults have been against provisions that were in the bill when the Senate voted for it during the last session of Congress. I am of the opinion that if this discussion lasted another day Senators would find in every line of the bill a very serious objection to its adoption. They started in to object to some provisions of the fourth and fifth sections. The Senator who has just concluded his remarks got over to the thirteenth section and I believe went one or two sections beyond that, and if there are any more speeches to be made against the bill I suppose the very last section of it will be attacked before a vote is taken.

"The Senate conferees regarded it as their duty to cling to every portion of the Senate bill, as it was passed, that they could cling to and reach an agreement between the conferees of the House and Senate. Hence it was that all these portions of the Senate bill not objected to by the House conferees were allowed to remain in the bill by the Senate conferees, the Senate conferees, as a matter of course, believing that the Senate of the United States knew what it was doing when it voted for the bill in the first place, and thinking that it remained of the same mind still. . . .

"The Senator from Georgia assaults the bill because he says that under it the provisions are so rigid that the railroads of the country can do no business at all. The Senator from Oregon assaults the bill because he says the fourth section amounts to nothing, and that the words 'under like circumstances and conditions' ought to be taken out.

"The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] assaults the bill because he says it is going to interfere with foreign commerce, and that the fourth section will be construed as not allowing a rebate of five cents a hundred upon commerce shipped across the country for exportation. . . .

"So I might go on referring to every Senator who has spoken against the bill, and nearly every one of them has founded his objections to the bill upon the use of the language that he had previously voted for in the Senate of the United States before the bill went to conference at all."

Men who opposed any legislation at all never supposed that the conference report would be agreed to, and I so stated in the Senate of the United States. I pointed out, moreover, that when they were met by a conference report the railroad men of the Senate rallied to the support of the transportation companies. I continued:

"Sir, it has just come to the point where you have got to face the music and vote for an interstate commerce bill, or vote it down. That is all there is to it. I have nothing more to say. I have discharged my duty as best I knew how. I reported on the part of the Senate conferees the bill that is before you. I am not responsible for what the Senate does with it. I am not going to find fault with anybody upon the question whether we concur in the report or reject it, but I warn Senators that the people of the United States for the last ten years have been struggling to assert the principle that the Government of the United States has the power to regulate transportation from one end of the country to another. I believe that if this report is rejected it is very doubtful whether we shall get any legislation at all during this present Congress, so when the Senate acts upon the question my duty will have been done so far as I am able to see it.

"I have believed from the time I have given any attention to public affairs that it was necessary to bring into force the provisions of the Constitution giving Congress the power to regulate commerce among the States. The Senator from New York [Mr. Evarts] attacked the bill and said that it was unconstitutional because, as I understand it, the Constitution was framed for the purpose of facilitating commerce, and this was a bill to hinder or to militate against it.

"I undertake to say that the purpose of the bill, at least, whatever may be the strained construction which has been placed upon it or which may be placed upon it by the transportation companies of the country, has been to facilitate commerce and to protect the individual rights of the people as against the great railroad corporations. I have no disposition to interfere with their legitimate business. I have no disposition, God knows, to interfere with the commerce of the country, properly conducted, but I do say that it is the duty of the Congress of the United States to place upon the statute book some legislation which will look to the regulation of commerce upon the railroads that they will not treat one man differently under similar circumstances and conditions. . . .

"The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan] says that we had better go slow and remain quiet under the old regime. Well, Mr. President, I remember only a few days ago hearing the Senator from Alabama alleging that the railroads, the common carriers of the country, were eating up the people, were destroying the interests of the people. I do not know whether he confined his remark to his own State or extended it to the country, but I should have inferred from the language he used against the railroad companies that he would have been in favor of almost any legislation that would in any way restrict them in their reckless disregard of the rights of the people. I can only conclude that the Senator from Alabama would rather that destructive system should go on, as he charged it to exist when he made his speech the other day, without control, than to trust a commission who he says are individually liable to corrupt influences either at the hands of the President or somebody else outside.