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an investigation at Des Moines; and a very large number of witnesses, representing greatly varied interests, were examined. It is interesting to notice that all the witnesses except one favored control of interstate commerce through a national commission. The testimony brought out in a most gratifying way the healthy growth of sentiment in Iowa upon railroad matters, and was in striking contrast to the crude notions in vogue at the time of the Granger agitation.

CHAPTER IX.

RAILROAD REPORTS.

ONE of the early duties of the Commission, upon the successful performance of which depended in considerable measure a wise and judicious control of the railroads, was the establishment of a system of railroad reports, which should give the Board full knowledge of the condition of the companies. To establish a system which should prove acceptable to all the lines, and should be willingly adopted, was no light task.

Sect. 4 of the law of 1878 provided that the Commissioners should make full report to the Governor annually of the condition of the railroads. Sect. 5

reads as follows:

"To enable said Commissioners to make such a report, the president or managing officer of each railroad corporation doing business in this State shall annually make to the said Commissioners, on the 15th day of the month of September, such returns in the form which they may prescribe, as will afford the information required for their said official report; such returns shall be verified by the oath of the officer making them; and any railroad corporation whose returns shall not be made as herein prescribed by the 15th day of September, shall be liable to a penalty of $100 for each and every day after the 16th day of September that such returns shall be wilfully delayed or refused."

Changes in phraseology were made in the law of 1888 (Sect. 22), but no change was made in principle.

The reports secured by the Commission at the close of the first year of its existence were not encouraging. Each railroad had its own methods of book-keeping. Some of them were not able to separate their Iowa business from the aggregate of their entire line. The system of reports was new both to the Commission and the railroads, and the difficulties were increased in some cases by wilful refusal of the companies to answer the questions asked. The returns, as summarized in the first report, amounted merely to careful approximations. In their second report, the Board advised that the Commissioners be required to report delinquencies in the matter of reports to the Governor, to the end that he might proceed at once to the collection of the penalty. There appears to have been no method prescribed for the enforcement of the imposed fines. After a somewhat extended discussion of the carelessness and inaccuracy of the reports, the Commissioners said:

"We dwell on this subject here because we had hoped the returns of this year would have been more correct, and an improvement over the first year's. On the contrary, many of them are simple copies of last year, carrying forward, evidently without thought or care, absurd blunders that then seemed unnecessary."

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The reports were evidently filled out, in many cases, by clerks who had no conception of the meaning of figures, and the completed reports were sworn to by the officers without verification. In many cases the mistakes were intentional, the officials proceeding upon a theory that the railroad business was a private business.

1 Report, 1879, p. 42.

with which the public had no concern. Accordingly, they complied only to such an extent as to prevent the passage of more stringent measures. The Commission early took a stand in favor of complete publicity of railroad operations as a panacea for the ills of railroad management. Publicity was necessary to establish public confidence, and the benefit resulting would accrue to carriers as well as to shippers.

The fifth division of Sect. 4 of the law of 1878 made it the duty of the Commissioners to report to the Governor each year "the cost and actual present cash value of each railroad and its equipment, including permanent way, buildings, and rolling-stock, and all fixtures and conveniences for transacting its business."

The Governor, in 1887, called the attention of the Commissioners to the fact that the railroads had neglected to reply to the questions bearing upon this subject; and upon Oct. 26 a special circular letter was sent to the roads, asking for this information. The Commissioners, in their letter to one of the roads, said, "The Commissioners desire the railroad companies to assume the responsibilities of such answers as they see fit to make, with the conviction that their answers will be used in the future."

The utter futility of such a provision in the law was shown in the replies received to the circular.1 With but few exceptions, the roads responded that the cost of the railroads could not be ascertained, owing to the manner in which they were built through the medium of construction companies. Moreover, any estimate of the "present cash value" would be a mere approximation, 1 Report, 1887, p. 131.

well-nigh valueless.

The responsibility for the determination of the value was therefore thrown entirely upon the Commissioners; and they adopted two bases. of estimate, the average market value for the year of the bonds and stock in localities where railroad property was continually bought and sold, and a valuation upon the basis of 6 per cent net earnings. The value of a road which had no stock and bonds, and no net earnings, was taken from the assessment made by the Executive Council for taxation purposes.

The blank furnished by the Commission to the roads was based upon the distribution of expenses and classification of accounts adopted by the Convention of State Railroad Commissioners, held at Saratoga, June, 1879. This was continued in force until 1889, when the blank of the National Commission was adopted, with the addition of such questions as were required by State law. The Commissioners have made every endeavor possible to secure complete and accurate reports from the companies; and the reports at present received, when compared with those received during the early years of the Commission, show that the Board has reaped a partial success from its efforts. But there is still much to be done. The last annual report of the Board, 1894, contains the following:

"It has been very difficult to obtain information from these companies that would disclose the 'working of the system of railroad transportation in the State,' and this report, while it attempts to give detailed statements of the operation of the roads as limited by the State lines, is little more than an approximation. The Commissioners have given all the information that could be obtained from the data furnished; they have made

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