SPECIAL MAY MEETING. 7 
sailor should carry a discharge book. That is one of the things that I tried to bring into the 
La Follette Bill, which Mr. Furuseth opposed in 1914, I think it was, when we passed the bill, 
but today he admits that it would be a good thing. But he does not like to have the man’s 
character put in the book. We may come together at some point on that, too. He has read 
the consular reports that I had, and I think we will find that Mr. Furuseth, if we pass this 
bili, will probably be reasonable in trying to see that the captain has control of the ship after 
it leaves the port. 
I do not know that there is much else inthe bill. There is a question, a number of 
questions, in it that probably might not interest you; at the same time they are questions 
that we must decide. One is whether railroads should own steamships. As a matter of 
fact, there is nothing in the law today to prevent them from owning steamship lines. The 
real reason, I think, that the railroad companies have not bothered much with shipping is 
because they could make better contracts with the foreign lines. And the real reason that 
they could make better contracts with foreign lines, as near as I can see, was the fact that 
they could get attractive through bills of lading. 
Now the question of bills of lading has been taken up in Washington, and after we get 
through with this bill we probably will have something to say about that. I noticed the other 
day that the Canadian Pacific Railroad, together with the Canadian Pacific Steamship Lines, 
had entered into a contract with the railroads of Italy by which a man can ship from any 
point in Canada to any point in Italy on a through bill of lading. Unfortunately we have 
not been able to do that. Whether it is on account of the opposition of the ship lines to 
railroads owning the lines, or whether it is necessary for the railroads to own the lines, 
is a question that I have not been able to decide. It is my opinion, however, from looking 
at it from the present viewpoint, that if we got a good bill of lading that would at least 
mean something, instead of this foolish, silly bill of lading that is promulgated today, which 
contains so many provisions which the poor unfortunate shipper does not know are null and 
void and could not be sustained if taken into court, possibly we might be able to settle the 
question of a through shipment. 
I was very much amazed on Wednesday night of this week to find out that almost 50 
per cent of a bill of lading could not be carried out in court if you took it there. Yet the 
poor shipper, when he has a loss which can be brought under some provision in that bill of 
lading, has it shoved under his nose and is told, “Here, you signed this; this is what you 
agreed to.” Yet the very thing that they are telling, the parties themselves know is a violation 
of the Harter Act and cannot be carried out in court if taken there; and when I asked one 
of the lawyers why they put that in he said, “Oh, well, we put it in because, you know, a 
lot of these fellows don’t know that.” The Harter Act fortunately says that any provi- 
sions contrary to the act are null and void, so that the carriers, with their usual good judg- 
ment, and with the idea of building up an American merchant marine, have a habit of stick- 
ing in everything they find new in the bill of lading, so that they can at least try to bluff the 
shipper out of an honest return that he is entitled to, rather than pay him as they ought to do. 
So, you see, there are hundreds of questions that come up with the merchant marine. 
There is insurance; there is banking. We find we are having difficulty with our foreign 
banking companies that we thought were progressing so nicely during the war. We do not 
welcome their concerns here as they do ours; therefore they legislate against us. I under- 
stand that they are passing laws in some of the South American countries against the banking 
institutions that we have established there, taking away from us privileges that English bank- 
ing companies have. 
