through the economic veins of the Nation, transportation must move commodities on published rates. Congress has established the following procedure:

Motor common carriers of property are directed in section 216 (b) of the act to establish rates. That paragraph requires that the rates must be just and reasonable.

In section 216 (c) we are told that we may establish reasonable through routes and joint rates.

In section 216 (d) it is stated that

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all charges made for any service shall be just and reasonable and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service or any part thereof, is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

In that same paragraph undue or unreasonable preference or prejudice is prohibited as to any person, port, gateway, locality, region, district, territory, or description of traffic. This very extensive guidance and prohibition is not changed in the slightest by the bills before you-unless it be that the Commission's power is strengthened in this

area.

Section 217 (a) directs common carriers to file tariffs with the Interstate Commerce Commission showing all rates and charges, and in the manner and form prescribed by the Commission.

I submit that these instructions, though broad, as they must be, are complete in protecting shippers, places, and regions from unjust preference, prejudice, or discrimination.

In paraphrase, the law states explicitly that the carriers must establish and observe rates. We may establish through rates and such rates must be reasonable. All our charges must be just and reasonable. No preference, prejudice, or discrimination may be practiced as between persons, places or regions. Finally, we must file tariffs expressing our rates and charges. I submit with all candor that the only possible way to file these rates and to observe the law with reference to its impositions and prescriptions is to do it through the means of rate conferences. The late Joseph B. Eastman aptly said, when testifying before the Senate committee on this identical subject in 1943, that carriers cannot perform these duties in a

vacuum.

Perhaps I can digress here from this statement and use an illustration drawn from this room which may assist in seeing this problem clearly.

With your indulgence, I would like us to assume that the chairs around this rostrum here represent the cities of the United States; that you gentlemen sitting in these chairs represent the shippers and receivers of freight and that those of us down here in the well, represent the transportation companies of the country.

The problem involved is to move goods from one of these chairs or cities as it were, to others, and we may assume that they are named, A, B, C, and so on throughout the alphabet.

The goods have to be moved from A to B; from B to C; from C to D, and so on. The goods may have to be moved from A to C or from A to L.

Now, there are just two or three ways that those goods may be moved. If they are moved from one city to another we can say that they to by a local rate. That is, one company may take them from

eity A, or chair, to be more literal in this situation, from city A to city B. If they are moved from A to C, they might be moved on a combination of local rates, one company taking them from A to B, and the second company carrying them from B to C, or they could be moved from A to some other point on through rates, where two or more carriers join in arriving at those rates and in the publication of the rates.

Now, in each one of those instances whether it be a purely local rate from A to C or A to B, or whether it be a combination of rates in which more than one carrier is involved or whether it be a through rate with two or more carriers joining, the Congress has said to us through the Interstate Commerce Act that there must be no discrimination; that the rates must be free of prejudice and preference; that they must be just and reasonable.

We have that obligation imposed upon us with respect to the movement of every piece of goods between every city that we serve in these United States and we must bear these certain facts in mind.

We know that the shippers in one city, city A or B or C or L or whatever the city may be; we know that the shippers within that city are interested in the rates that are paid by other shippers within that city. We know that the shippers and the receivers as well in any city are interested in the rates that are paid by the competing shippers and receivers in A and in C or in L, or in any other city to and from which the goods might be shipped, and we know that with regard to everyone of those shippers we must remember the prescriptions, and the prohibitions of the law.

They tell us that these rates must be just; they must be reasonable; they must be without preference or prejudice and they must be without discrimination with reference to shippers, ports, localities, places, regions, areas and different types of shipment, as well, of course, as all persons and shippers individually.

Now, I submit that that is really typical of the problem that we are faced with as transportation agents in this country and we constantly have that law before us telling us, as I have already indicated how we must treat all these shippers justly and fairly, without preference, prejudice and without discrimination; I submit there is no way in the world whereby individual carriers can publish these rates and abide by the law unless we get together and consider what we are going to do and how it is to be done and that in essence it seems to me is the conference rate making which I contend, and which I believe all transportation agencies and shippers too contend, is a method which helps us and enables us to abide by the law and at the same time to treat the shippers fairly.

The conference method of rate making is simple for shippers, simple for carriers, and is economical n practice. As I stated in my testimony in the 1946 Senate hearings, 1943 figures show motor carriers' total tariff costs are less than three-tenths of a cent per dollar of gross revenue. Current figures are substantially the same.

Before coming down here this morning I had our Research Director check into those figures for the last year available which happened to be 1945. The figures for that service is published by the carriers in their reports to the Interstate Commerce Commission and show a slightly lower cost in 1945 than in 1943.

Briefly, the organization and practice can be outlined as follows: Motor carriers who so desire, in an area or region, organize a conference or bureau as a simple and economical means of considering such traffic matters as freight rates, rules and regulations, to govern the traffic to be moved. The bureau as it is most often called, acts as a clearing house for the affected traffic problems of the member carriers; the carriers and the shipping public; and the carriers and the Interstate Commerce Commission.

When motor carrier rates were first filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1936, many carriers joined hands in bureaus to undertake the new work of publishing and filing rates. When tariff changes are proposed the proposals are made through the bureau. They may be filed by a carrier, a shipper, or the bureau itself. The following procedure is generally typical of the practice in representative bureaus of the country:

The proposal is placed on the monthly public docket, which is reproduced and distributed to the bureau members. It is published simultaneously also in Transport Topics, in the Traffic Bulletin (both being transportation journals), and in many bureaus publications for the benefit of the public and nonmember carriers. The docket is available to and open for public inspection at all times. After a lapse of about 10 days public hearings by a standing rate committee are held at a convenient point.

Within about a week the standing rate committee makes known its decision and all parties concerned have another 10 days in which to file an appeal with the general rate committee. The general rate committee holds monthly meetings, scheduled to come after the standing rate committee hearings, so that the general rate committee may dispose of appeals promptly. If the proposal by the general rate committee is not acceptable to the proponent carrier, the carrier has the right to give notice of independent action and have prompt publication by the bureau.

The above represents the procedure in intraterritorial rate proposals. In interterritorial proposals, the procedure is the same except that independent action may be taken immediately after denial and no appeal is necessary.

One more aspect of collective rate making of extreme importance must also be understood. That is the fact that the Interstate Commerce Commission encouraged and fostered the establishment of motor-carrier bureaus throughout the country. Equally important: all rates and charges published must be filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission which has full authority to suspend the rates if found unlawful or in any manner unjust. Thus the interests of shippers and carriers are always and finally within the jurisdiction and protection of the Commission.

This committee knows that the legality of the conference approach is questioned. Certainly that is our interpretation of the view of the Department of Justice. The Department brought a criminal suit against motor carriers which was tried in the Federal District Court at Denver, Colo., March and April 1944 which though not technically charging that the operation of a bureau is contrary to the antitrust laws nevertheless made many motor carriers believe that such was their view. The current Georgia and Lincoln cases have much in them to arouse suspicion. Besides, the testimony of Department of

Justice witnesses before House and Senate committees considering this subject has led many persons to believe the Department thinks that legality of the collective approach to rate making is without sure foundation. In addition, representatives and former representatives of the Department in other public appearances have led strongly to the opinion that this is the official view of the Department.

It seems to me there is ample evidence before this committee to show the necessity of a joint approach to the subject of rate making and I believe that you gentlemen are so convinced. The task remains to legalize the method under proper safeguards. We simply ask that conflict and doubt be resolved as between the antitrust law and the Interstate Commerce Act and that Congress speak to the question.

And let me add a word here to my prepared statement. It seems clear to me that the problem before the transportation agencies and the problem before the Congress is not a problem of court decision. It is a problem of making a statement of legislative policy. Now, legislative policy is not a matter for the courts to determine at all.

I turn to the Federal Constitution, article I, section 1, and I find these words:

All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

It seems to me that very clearly this is the type of problem that cannot be settled point by point through litigation in our various courts, but which must be resolved by the Congress which can establish a general rule under which an administrative body can act continually year after year.

We are told by some of those who oppose this legislation that we ought.to delay it. They caution against taking action at the present time. They tell us that we ought to allow the courts to act and then they tell us too that the Department of Justice is not going to bother the legitimate activities of rate bureaus or rate conferences.

Some years ago when I was in high school, I think I heard first the statement that ours is or ought to be a Government of laws and not of men.

Now, so long as we resort to the promises, or shall I say, the insinuations or suggestions of those who believe that the Department of Justice is not going to move in on collective rate`making and stop it by injunctive processes, so long are we depending on a Government of men.

At first I did not like that particular expression as it was made to me by a professor of political science or a person with some other title in the teaching profession, because I thought that it was too cold; that it was too indirect; that we were getting away from men and moving into the cold field of abstract law. It did not take long, however, after I had a little law and business experience to learn that what we needed was certainty; what we needed to know was the policy of Congress or the policy of the State legislatures to lay down a principle by which we can be guided and upon which we can depend for certainty.

We cannot depend upon the courts to settle this problem before us because it is not the type of matter that can successfully be submitted to the courts. It is merely a pinpoint attack, if we do.

Neither can we depend upon the promises or understanding of those who say that this is something that the Department of Justice is not going to interrupt or interfere with.

What we need is a clear and prompt statement of congressional policy on this subject, telling us what they mean in the National Transportation Policy and in the Interstate Commerce Act and attempting in their own way to reconcile the meaning and philosophy of that act and the meaning and philosophy of the antitrust laws. We think the only possible way that can be done is by passage of some bill such as S. 110, or H. R. 221, or a combination of the two, which will clearly express the intent of the Congress on the subject.

Thank you.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Rice a question.

Mr. HALE. Mr. Bulwinke.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Mr. Rice, you stated that you are general counsel of the American Trucking Association, Inc.?

Mr. RICE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Is that correct?

Mr. RICE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BULWINKLE. The American Trucking Association, Inc., is made up of a number of trucking firms or corporations in the country; is it not?

Mr. RICE. Yes, sir; it is made up of associations in the 48 States whose members automatically are members of the American Trucking Association.

Mr. BULWINKLE. How many members have you?

Mr. RICE. I do not know precisely; but it is a great many thousand. We will say 20,000. I know that that is a safe figure.

Mr. BULWINKLE. That are members of the American Trucking Association?

Mr. RICE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Does that mean that there are 20,000 trucking associations in the United States that belong to your organization? Mr. RICE. 20,000 trucking companies; yes, sir. I would say that that is a conservative figure. There may be more, but that is a rather large figure and I am certain of that.

Mr. BULWINKLE. I am wondering if you have any list of those. Mr. RICE. We do not.

Mr. BULWINKLE. In your national organization's office here?

Mr. RICE. Those would be contained in the various State association offices in the 48 States.

Mr. BULWINKLE. For instance, I would like to have a list of all of those in North Carolina.

Mr. RICE. I think that can be had, sir.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Well then, not for the purpose of the record, probably-but I might want to use it for the record. Is there any way that you can get the list of all of these trucking associations, organizations, or companies?

Mr. RICE. Of the companies?

Mr. BULWINKLE. Yes.

Mr. RICE. I think so. It will take some little time.

Mr. BULWINKLE. How long will it take?

Mr. RICE. A matter of a few weeks, maybe.