CONGRESS. (SAFETY OP LIFE ON RAILROADS.) 



215 



In presenting the measure, Mr. Cullom, of 

 Illinois, said in support of it: 



Mr. President, it does not seem to me that 

 the Senate can afford, with due deference to 

 pulilic judgment and the performance of its own 

 duly, to neglect this subject any longer. The 

 Senator from .Maryland and every other mem- 

 ber of the Committee on Interstate Commerce 

 know that I have at no time l>een disposed to 

 crowd legislation beyond what seemed to be 

 absolutely necessary, and I have sometimes felt 

 that I was almost negligent in my duty as 

 chairman of the committee in not pressing 

 legislation earlier than I have done. 



" But when a bill has been introduced upon 

 this subject, or any vital amendment to the in- 

 terstate commerce act has been referred to the 

 committee, the committee has been disposed to 

 hear everybody interested, so as to be sure and 

 make no mistake in what it undertook to do, 

 and that it should not inflict a wrong upon any- 

 body in connection with the railroad service. 



"So this subject has been before the Inter- 

 state Commerce Committee I think for three or 

 four years, and from time to time we have heard 

 gentlemen representing railroads and represent- 

 ing the employees of railroads, and we have felt a 

 degree of uncertainty heretofore (at least before 

 the last session of Congress) in regard to the 

 matter. We felt that we were not prepared to 

 formally recommend any legislation on the sub- 

 ject lest we might recommend something that 

 Congress ought not to do. 



" In the meantime the President of the 

 Tinted States has been calling upon Congress 

 to act. In the meantime, as I said the other 

 day, railroad commissioners of States have been 

 calling upon us to act. In the meantime the 

 labor organizations whose members have had the 

 work to do in the conduct of the railroads have 

 been calling upon us to act. But there was such 

 a diversity of judgment as to the kind of action 

 we ought to take that we thought we were justi- 

 fied in letting the matter wait for the develop- 

 ment of further information on the subject. 



" However, during the last session of Congress 

 the Senate committee acted, and acted upon the 

 House bill which is now before us, and reported 

 a substitute for that House bill, which, I may 

 say frankly, is more liberal to the common car- 

 riers of the country than the House bill itself. 

 The desire of the committee, so far as I know, 

 has been that something should be done upon 

 this question that would give the common car- 

 riers or railroads of the country to understand 

 t hat they must put these devices or some devices 

 upon their cars and their locomotives to give 

 greater security to the lives of the men who are 

 operating the railroads. 



" I may read from the messages of the Presi- 

 dent. Beginning in 1889, he says, in his first 

 annual message : 



The attention of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sion has been called to the urgent need of congres- 

 sional legislation for the better protection of the lives 

 and limbs of those engaged in operating the great in- 

 terstate freight lines of the. country, and especially of 

 the yardmen and brakemen, etc. 



" This is only a paragraph of what he said in 

 his first message. 

 " The honorable Senator from Maryland raises 



the question that Congress has nothing to do 

 with the subject. There has not warned to l.e 

 any question in the minds of the people, in the 

 minds of the State Railroad Commissioners, in 

 the minds of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sioners, or in the mind of the President as to the 

 |K>wer of Congress to legislate upon this subject, 

 requiring such devices upon locomotives and 

 cars used in interstate commerce as shall as far 

 as possible result in the protection of the lives 

 and limbs of those who are operating them. 



" The President, in his second annual message, 

 submitted in December, 1890, again called the 

 attention of Congress to the necessity for greater 

 uniformity in safety appliances in the following 

 words : 



It may still bo possible for this Congress to inaug- 

 urate, by suitable legislation, a movement looking to 

 uniformity and increased safety in the use of couplers 

 and brakes upon freight trains engaged in interstate 

 commerce. The chief difficulty in the way is to se- 

 cure agreement as to the best appliances, simplicity, 

 effectiveness, and cost being considered, etc. 



" Then afterward the President sent another 

 message, and finally in the last message which 

 he sent Congress the recommendation was re- 

 newed. 



" Still the Senate of the United States, I may 

 say because perhaps the bill was in the control 

 of the Interstate Commerce Committee, has taken 

 no action. We have let it rest and continue to 

 rest, hoping that we might arrive at something 

 that would be certain to result in the very best 

 possible interest of the men operating the roads. 

 In the meantime the national conventions took 

 up the subject. I do not refer to it myself for 

 the purpose of making this a party discussion, 

 but to snow that the Senate itself ought to take 

 some action if it has any regard for pledges to the 

 country as Democrats and Republicans. Let us 

 see what the national conventions say. Take 

 the Republican platform adopted at Minneapolis: 



We favor efficient legislation by Congress to protect 

 the life and limbs of employees of transportation com- 

 panies engaged in carrying on interstate commerce, 

 and recommend legislation by the respective States 

 that will protect employees engaged m State com- 

 merce, in mining and manufacturing. 



' Then the Democratic convention at Chicago 

 adopted the following : 



SEC. 19. We favor legislation by Congress and State 

 legislatures to protect the lives and limbs of railway 

 employees and those of other hazardous transporta- 

 tion companies, and denounce the inactivity of the 

 Republican party, and particularly the Republican 

 Senate, for causing the defeat of measures beneficial 

 and protective to this class of wage workers." 



There was a strong fight against the measure 

 in the House of Representatives, and in the 

 course of it Mr. Washington, of Tennessee, pre- 

 sented the case for the railroads as follows : 



" My time is so short I will not discuss the 

 legal aspect and the grave constitutional Ques- 

 tions involved in this sort of legislation. They 

 have already been briefly commented upon ; 

 but. sir. if Congress has the right to prescribe 

 the coupler and brake which shall go upon a 

 freight car, it has the same right and the power 

 to prescribe in every detail and particular the 

 construction of that car, the material of which 



