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!
Crow once more, little rooster!