ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 179 



will never have to go before the supreme court. I am not sure whether 

 the Nebraska law was worded to cover shipments to Kansas City 

 or Chicago, but the bill defeated in the thirty-second general as- 

 sembly arranged for just such contingencies. 



The Secretary: There is just one thing I want to emphasize. 

 Of course we can't determine whether a law is constitutional or 

 not; but whatever we do on this matter before the legislature or 

 before the railroads, must be based on definite facts. If you ex- 

 pect your officers to do anything to relieve the situation, you must 

 furnish them with certain definite information which they can rely 

 upon and which they can present. Only in that way can we get 

 any attention either at the hands of the railroads or the members 

 of the legislature. As has been mentioned here, when the question 

 was up before the committees two years ago we had a mass of 600 

 or 700 reports, each of them giving the time the train was loaded 

 and started, and the different points at which it was stopped, and 

 the reason for the delay, if it could be ascertained. The railroad 

 people had difficulty in meeting us before the legislative commit- 

 tee when we were fortified with that information, but if we go 

 there without that, and simply state the condition as we know it 

 to exist, they reply by submitting their train sheets on any par- 

 ticular day to show that such a condition did not exist. Mr. Good- 

 enow sugests that it is not necessary to indicate the station at 

 which a delay has occurred. With due deference to him, I want 

 to say that I think it is necessary, because then we have something 

 to put in opposition to the train report of that particular train. 

 If a particular place is named where delay has occurred, it is up 

 to them to show that that is not true, by submitting their train 

 report; and if Mr. Goodenow has been careful in giving the exact 

 place, it will correspond with that train report, and we disarm 

 them in that way. We must have these reports furnished by you 

 people who do the shipping if we are to make any impression at all. 

 We got these in promptly for two or three months, and then they 

 quit coming. We must have them again this winter, and be- 

 ginning soon, if we are able to render any service to you in this 

 matter; and I think it would be well for this convention to pass 

 a resolution urging the members to fill out and mail back to the 

 secretary a train report for each shipment, so that we will have 

 that definite, positive information, giving the day, the date and 

 the hour of every important incident connected with that ship- 

 ment. 



