A Smell to Heaven?

To most U.S. railroads, the Reed-Bulwinkle Bill was a long-sought boon. It would exempt them from the antitrust laws. The railroads could agree among themselves on rates, as long as they were approved by the ICC. But to a handful of Senators, the bill was a camel’s nose beneath the tent of antitrust legislation. They feared the whole camel would soon be inside.

As the battle reached its climax in the Senate last week, Kentucky’s Alben William Barkley stood up to give his views. Said he: “If every organization in the United States . . . endorsed the bill I would still be against it … it is vicious legislation.” The talk was of railroads, said Barkley, but the bill applied also to water carriers, buses, trucks, pipelines and freight forwarders. It would “impose a transportation monopoly.” Why not exempt U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Standard Oil and International Harvester?

More Support. Kansas’ Clyde Martin Reed, sponsor of the bill, deprecated such notions. The bill’s opponents had proceeded, “either wilfully or ignorantly, upon an erroneous basis. . . . Every experienced traffic man knows that a majority of freight rate changes, whether made by a bureau or in some other method or manner, are decreases. The shippers . . . have universally come ‘to the support of this bill.”

In all, the bill had been endorsed by 48 Federal Government and state authorities,. 20 carrier organizations, 85 shippers’ groups, 145 farm and livestock organizations, 108 business groups and 552 chambers of commerce and civic organizations. New Hampshire’s Scripture-quoting Charles William Tobey saw in this the “fine Italian handwork” of the Association of American Railroads. It had “greased all the wheels.” Cried he: “Before God, it smells to heaven.”

Less Competition? Nevertheless, the bill was passed, 60 to 27, and went to the House. It is sure of passage there (a similar bill passed last year) and probably has sufficient backing to override the expected presidential veto.

Good or bad, the bill posed a number of prime questions. Though it specifically excepted the state of Georgia’s suit against Eastern railroads for discriminatory freight rates (TIME, April 9, 1945), many Senators thought that the Supreme Court would drop the case as a moot question, if the bill should become law.

Furthermore, the bill seemed certain to nullify the antitrust suit against rate agreements of Western railroads now being tried in Lincoln, Neb. Snapped the Louisville Courier-Journal: “It is hard to convince opponents of the bill that it is not an effort to beat the courts to the punch.” The bill was the biggest step yet in the trend to free big sections of the economy from antitrust laws.*

There were those who thought the railroads shortsighted; that the penalty for decreased competition would be increased regulation. But railroads had no such worries. To the railroad association’s new president, big, 54-year-old William T. Faricy, the bill’s passage “reflects the small credence given the sensational, intemperate and unfounded attacks.”

The railroad brotherhoods, which claim that nearly 100 members die monthly from railroad accidents, have been pressing the ICC for tighter safety regulations. Last week the ICC ordered the railroads to install automatic block signal systems, by 1951, on any portion of their lines where passenger trains run more than 60 m.p.h. (freights more than 50 m.p.h.), and automatic train-stop control systems wherever they are operated at more than 80 m.p.h. Estimated cost: $250,000,000. As an alternative, some roads plan to reduce their speeds.

*Others already freed: exporters’ associations, marine insurance companies, agricultural marketing associations, fishermen’s marketing cooperatives, the soft-coal industry, fire insurance companies.