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Show FEDERAL REGULATION. The ill -success which has attended the conflicting, confusing and costly efforts of the states to regulate railways rail-ways led the Republicans at their national na-tional convention to adopt a plank which should receive the most serious consideration throughout the campaign. This plank reads: Interstate and intrastate transportation trans-portation have become so interwoven inter-woven that the attempt to apply two and often several sets of laws to its regulation has produced conflicts con-flicts of authority, embarrassment iu operation and inconvenience and expense to the public. The entire transportation system of the country has become essentially essen-tially national. We, therefore, j favor such action by legislation, or, if necessary, through an amendment amend-ment to the constitution of the United States as will result in placing it under exclusive federal control. t- Soma of the country's larger rail-i rail-i way systems are trying to eouform to regulations made by as many as eight or ten state commissions. Often the regulations iu one state are in conflict with the regulations in an adjoining state, and quite as often neither state's laws harmonize with federal regulations. regula-tions. And yet the states continue to pile up laws aimed at the regulation of railroads, and confusion becomes worse confounded. The Republican party believes that both the railroads and the public would be better satisfied with uniform regulation, regu-lation, and such regulation can be secured se-cured only by centralizing it in the federal government. The states are attempting with inefficient and incompetent incom-petent railroad commissions, which veer and sway with the winds of local politics, poli-tics, to regulate transportation companies, com-panies, which cannot be supposed to conform to the exigencies of the political politi-cal situations in half a dozen states. Even when the members of the rail-1 rail-1 road commissions are uninfluenced by political considerations and are perfectly per-fectly sincere in the regulations they seek to enforce, they work injury to the railroads and to the public by their unfamiliarity with railroad conditions. The railways frequently find themselves them-selves confronted by a conflict of authority, au-thority, the interstate commerce commission com-mission insisting on one thing, and a state commission on something almost precisely the opposite. This conflict of authority has led to litigation which fortunately has, in most instances, increased in-creased the power of the federal commission, com-mission, and clipped the wings of the state commissions. The supreme court of the United States has taken the view that where state legislation conflicts with federal legislation the state law must give way. But these questions can be determined only by expensive litigation. Eafh new conflict calls for a new law suit. If state regulation should be superseded by federal regulation regula-tion the possibility of conflict between states and the national government would be practically eliminated. Exclusive national regulation would not only free the railroad companies from embarrassment and make it easy for them to comply with the law, but it would improve the efficiency of their service to the public, and would relieve the states of costly commissions. |