Show 1 THE INTERSTATE LAW There seems to be every reason to be Hero that at the end of the limit set by itself the InterState Commerce Commission Com-mission will restore the operation of tho famous section 4the long and short haul provision of the law There can be little question but that the general public desires such restoration restora-tion With the suspension of the long and short haul clausethe InterState law = J 11887o t much emasculated as was the = Ulah bill when Patriarch Edmunds and his Republican and polygamous conferees con-ferees got through with it The InterState Inter-State law is however in better luck than its unfortunate legislative brother or Utah Its emasculation is but tem porary and its vigor can be restored by ho action of the InterState Commission Without the long and short haul provi sion the InterState law is a farce With it the law is at least endowed with force and meaning The law is but an experiment but it is an experiment experi-ment of National demand and public promise If it fails its very failure will point the way to success The people desire that the law should bo fully and fairly tried This is significantly evidenced evi-denced by the action of the Farmers Am I ance of Minnesota These sturdy farmers have just informed the Commission that I in their opinion business that could not be carried on under the provisions of the long and short haul clause should not be carried on at all These words of the Farmers Alliance of Minnesota Minne-sota are not only significant they are doubly so They indicate public sentiment sen-timent in regard to the law itself and also embody the stern popular protest against the organized greed of corporation corpora-tion The InterState law was framed to perform per-form a certain mission Tho people demand de-mand that at least it be allowed to attempt at-tempt the execution of that mission The InterState Commission is popularly representative rep-resentative In its very nature it must grant the popular demand The bare announcement that tho law as I a whole is to be rigorously and vigorously enforced will in itself go along a-long way toward smoothing tho difficulties difficul-ties in the path of such enforcement The railroads will not care to incur the odium of continued opposition an opposition oppo-sition that must be hopeless They will gracefully accept the inevitable They will no longer indulge in a resistance as useless as peevish Business interests will assert themselves and the railway corporations will settle down upon the new basis making the most of the new situation situa-tion As THE DEMOCBAT has taken frequent occasion to say the law is crude in many respects We think that the aggregated wisdom Congress might have evolved something much better AU new things are crude however and the InterState law with all of its imperfections is avery a-very long step in the right direction While it can not be looked upon in any sense as a final solution solu-tion of the gigantic problem it attempts to elucidate it ian ism i is-m earnest that that problem will be finally and triumphantly solved Honestly Hon-estly and vigorously enforced it will bean be-an unerring guide to the desired future Its successes and its failures will endow it with the great qualities of a public teacher and through its educating medium the mistakes and misconceptions misconcep-tions of today will be written in the victory 1 vic-tory of ten years hence i |