stability of rate schedules, while the Wright bill provided that the
Commissioners should fix maximum rates only, thus permitting the famous
"fluidity" of schedules advocated by machine lobby and Southern Pacific
attorneys.

The contest between the supporters of the Wright and the supporters of
the Stetson bill, finally narrowed down to the question of providing for
absolute or maximum rates.

The provision for the maximum rate in Senator Wright's bill, authorized
the railroad regulating Commission to fix the highest charge which a
railroad may exact from a shipper. This is called the maximum rate. The
transportation company is authorized to lower the rate at will, but it
cannot charge a rate beyond the maximum as fixed by the Commission. This
leaves the railroads to fix a sliding schedule of rates, so long as they
do not exceed the maximum. It gives the railroads the advantage of that
"fluidity" of schedules, which railroad attorneys insist is necessary
for railroad prosperity.

The maximum rate is provided in the Interstate Commerce Act, but the
Interstate Commerce Commissioners, finding it impracticable, have for
years been clamoring for Congress to authorize the fixing of absolute
rates. The cry of the Interstate Commerce Commission has been taken up
by the shipping interests, and from one end of the country to the other
there is growing demand that authority be placed somewhere to make
railroad rates, when fixed by a regulating Commission, absolute.

The absolute rate, or the fixed rate as it is better called, which was
provided in the Stetson bill, can neither be lowered nor raised by the
railroads. Once fixed by the regulating Commission, it must remain until