OCR Text |
Show There are some four hundred railroad men who are badly surprised sur-prised at what they nre pleafcd to term "a trick" played on them by Secretary of Agricnltuic Wilson. They arc oflicials of terminal roads who maintained that thu law forbidding for-bidding the transportation of live stock for periods of more than twenty-eight hours without unloading un-loading for Wod and watpr, applied ap-plied only to through roads. The Secretary warned them that they would be prosecuted if the' failed to observe the law and then instructed in-structed his agen'.s to watch them. Now the Attorney General has rendered an opinion to the effect that the Secretary was right and the railroads wrong in their respective re-spective construing of the law. Thu railroads expected that until a test case had been carried through the courts they would be free from prosccu'ion, but the Secretary has secured the evidence evi-dence with which to conduct four hundred prosecution!, and he insists in-sists upon punishing the railroads for their refusal to obscivu his warning. Thu railroads have seldom sel-dom been treated like other pi-oplc and they arc inclined to resent thu proposition that they Mioiild be punished for violating an untested law, but some of them have been wise enough to announce their intention in-tention of paying their fine without with-out attempting to establish u defense. |