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The Conflict over Railroad Regulation in Alabama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

James F. Doster
James F. Doster
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama
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Abstract

A half century ago the conflict over state regulation of railroads was the chief issue in Alabama politics. Two staunch advocates led the rival forces. Both leaders were in agreement on the need to develop the industrial capacities of the state, but each sponsored violently opposing concepts of how this could best be done. The present article, by presenting the two sides of the Alabama controversy, provides us with insights into the national dilemma over government regulation of business which developed after the Civil War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1954 , pp. 329 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1954

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References

1 See Keith, Jean E., “The Role of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in the Early Development of Alabama Coal and Iron,” in Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXVI (Sept., 1952), 165–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armes, Ethel, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (Birmingham, 1910)Google Scholar, Chapters xvi, xvii, et passim; testimony of Milton H. Smith in Hearings before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, Senate Document 243, 59th Congress, 1st Session, p. 234.

2 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, XXXI (9 Oct. 1880), 362, et passim in following years (see indexes); Proceedings before the Alabama Railroad Commission at Montgomery, Ala., on April 3–6 and May 3–6, 1905, in the matter of Fertilizer Rates and on the General Revision of Freight Rates in Alabama.

3 Ibid.; also Re Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 3 I.C.R., 609; 4 I.C.R. 157 (1891).

4 Bigbee & Warrior Rivers Packet Co. v. Mobile & Ohio R. Co., 60 Fed. Rep. 545 (1893).

5 Hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission Relative to … the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., Senate Document 461, 64th Congress, 1st Session.

6 Fourth Section Violations in the Southeast, 30 I.C.C. 153 (1914).

7 Testimony of Smith before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 9 Dec. 1897, in Railway Rates and Charges, Senate Document 259, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 7.

8 See testimony of Smith, ibid., pp. 3–5. In 1916 an investigation of the L. & N. by the Interstate Commerce Commission revealed that the free-pass situation in Kentucky and Tennessee was thoroughly rotten but found little evidence of free passes used for political purposes in Alabama, where a strong law of 1907 stood in the way. Hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission Relative to … the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., Senate Document 461, 64th Congress, 1st Session, passim.

9 Smith to Governor Comer, 23 Oct. 1907, in Birmingham Age-Herald, 24 Oct. 1907.

10 Testimony of Smith before the Interstate Commerce Commission, 6 Dec. 1897, in Railway Rates and Charges, Senate Document 259, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 16–20.

11 Hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission Retative to … the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., Senate Document No. 461, 64th Congress, 1st Session (1916), pp. 346–7, 405–10.

12 For a review of these events in some detail see Doster, James F., “The Influence upon Alabama of Georgia's Regulation of Railroads,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXXVII (March, 1953), 39–51Google Scholar, and “Alabama's Political Revolution of 1904,” Alabama Review, VII (1954), 85–98.

13 The quotation is from the words of R. E. Steiner of Montgomery in an interview with the author on 9 Dec. 1941.

14 By 1916 even Milton H. Smith admitted that the system had in a considerable measure broken down. Hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission Relative to … the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., Senate Document No. 461, 64th Congress, 1st Session (1916), pp. 348–50.

15 See Doster in Alabama Review, VII ( 1954), 85–98.

16 Proceedings before the Ahbama Railroad Commission at Montgomery, Ala., on April 3–6 and May 3–6, 15, 1905, in the matter of Fertilizer Rates arid on the General Revision of Freight Rates in Alabama, p. 96.

17 For Lower Freight Rates. Mr. B. B. Comer Files his Argument with the Railroad Commission, 2 July 1903. Broadside.

18 Ibid., quoting, somewhat inexactly, Dixon, Frank H., State Railroad Control with a History of its Development in Iowa (New York, 1896), 195–6.Google Scholar The second paragraph is Comer's paraphrase of a quotation by Dixon from the 1891 Annual Report of the Iowa railroad commission.

19 The Southern Railway faced simultaneous pressure in Alabama, North Carolina, and elsewhere. “While the sacrifice of its revenue is a matter of no small moment,” said the company's representatives, “and a surrender of its legal rights a matter of serious concern, yet it is willing to make such sacrifice and surrender rather than enter into or prolong what might become an angry contest with the authorities of the State of Alabama.” J. S. B. Thompson and Alex P. Humphrey to Governor Comer, 8 Aug. 1907, in Governor's letterfile No. 138, Alabama State Department of Archives and History, Montgomery; Montgomery Advertiser, 9 Aug. 1907. R. E. Steiner told the author in an interview on 9 Dec. 1941, that the man responsible for the Southern's policy was J. P. Morgan. Steiner had been present at a meeting of railroad men at Morgan's New York office when the decision was in the process of being made.

20 230 U.S. 352.