Слике страница
PDF
ePub

SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE

CORPORATION COMMISSION

Chairman Jack Love, of the Corporation Commission, today filed the following interesting report with Governor Haskell:

Hon. C. N. Haskell, Governor,

Oklahoma City, Okla.

Guthrie, Okla., January 5, 1911.

His Excellency: We have the honor to herewith submit the Annual Report of the Corporation Commission for the year ending June 30, 1910.

During the period covered by this report much in a general way has been accomplished and information and data collected which will be of inestimable benefit for future use. In the first year of the Commission's work, orders were necessarily made upon relative conditions rather than on absolute information-that is, if a rate, rule or regulation was in force in other parts of the country, why should not the same rate or regulation be applied here. This is known as establishing rates to prevent discrimination based upon relative conlitions. With the information that the Commission has been collecting from time to time, conclusions can be arrived at with that degree of security which will bring satisfactory results to the shipping and traveling public.

Complaints that are filed before the Commission are classified for the purpose of disposition into formal and informal. Informal complaints are adjusted by correspondence and without a hearing. Formal complaints are those that require a hearing. Informal complaints average from two to five a day. The Commission will hereafter keep a definite record of matters of this kind disposed of during the next fiscal year. There were three hundred two formal complaints filed since the last annual report, and disposition has been made of two hundred eighty-four. The various subjects involved and considered in these complaints are tabulated, appearing elsewhere in this report, which includes train service, new depots, depot service, spur and side tracks, rates, telegraph service, crossings, physical connections of railways, telephone lines, depot agents and many other matters too numerous to mention here. Of all the cases appealed from the rulings of the Commission, twenty-one have been affirmed or appeals therein dismissed. Seven orders of the Commission have been set aside and many others have been remanded to the Commission to take further evidence or make additional findings of fact.

The Commission has divided the work into the following divisions or departments: Rate, Accounting, Engineering, Telephone, Gas and Electric Light, and Private Corporations. We will give a short synopsis of the work of each department.

RATE DEPARTMENT.

This department is prepared and doing a very thorough work in the handling of freight traffic and the making of comparisons between rates in force in this State and other states. We have on file sixteen thousand tariffs. The Railroad Commission of Vermont has approximately two thousand tariffs; the State of Georgia, seven thousand five hundred. The scope of information available in this department includes every tariff in effect on every railroad doing business in the State of Oklahoma and on every railroad connecting with a railroad doing business in Oklahoma, by means of which a correct rate can be quoted on any commodity from any point in the United States to or through Oklahoma. Our tariff files have been declared by railroad experts to be the most complete in the United States with the exception of the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. There is a large number of informal complaints handled through this department, such as overcharges for freight which usually grow out of an error in the local agent applying the wrong tariff. While the Commission has no jurisdiction over controversies growing out of interstate shipments, it has accomplished much for the shippers of the State by quoting to the proper railroad officials the correct rate and insisting upon the prompt payment of overcharges. In a few cases where railroads have refused to make these settlements promptly, the Commission filed complaint for the use and benefit of the shipper before the Interstate Commerce Commission. The amount of freight refunded since our last report will approximately amount to $20,000. However, this is a very inadequate indication of the actual amount involved. In many instances the adjustment of one car has resulted in the refund, on the same basis, of several other cars and resulted in a discontinuance of the overcharge, not only to this shipper but to other shippers similarly situated, thereby establishing the correct rate for the benefit of all. This has also resulted in making the local employeees of the railroads more careful in applying the proper tariffs, and overcharges are growing less frequent every day. Specific cases have varied in the refund of claims involving from fifteen cents to twenty-eight hundred dollars. While this department has turned back to shippers in actual cash three times as much as it costs to maintain the same, yet the greatest benefit results from the constant effort on the part of the Commission to have railway employees to apply freight tariffs properly. It is but natural, if the agent collects less than the tariff schedule that he must make up the difference and it has been the custom heretofore to give himself the benefit of the doubt and if he did not know the correct tariff to be sure and charge enough to obviate the making up of any shortage out of his earnings. This has had the effect in at few instances of the replacement of employees who were shown to be incompetent or indifferent.

There has been much complaint of the interstate rate between Arkansas and Oklahoma, and between Texas points and Oklahoma, and the rate department is now preparing a table of comparisons that these unreasonable short interestate rates between these states may

be adjusted. With this department, the Commission has been able to render valuable service in the rate hearings now pending in the Federal Courts, also all rate hearings before the Commission.

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT.

In this report are abstracts compiled by the auditing department from the annual reports of railroad corporations, street railroad corporations and express companies for the year ending June 30, 1909.

The Commission promulgated an accounting order No. 201 (published herein) effective July 1, 1909, providing for a uniform system of accounts covering operating revenues and operating expenses of all public service properties operated in Oklahoma. It also requires railway companies to classify expenditures for road and equipment and other accounts covering locomotive miles, train miles, ton miles, passenger miles and car miles, and other requirements. This accounting order requires much greater detail than in the former system used, which was similar to that required by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Monthly comparative reports of operating revenues, and operating and other expenses are required from all public service companies, effective July 1, 1909. The correcting and testing of these reports as they come in and the making of necessary corrections therein requires considerable time. The Commission has found it necessary to inspect the same very closely. We have now the most complete and effective accounting system of any commission in the United States.

ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT.

The Constitution provides that the Commission shall, as soon as practicable, find the original and reproductive cost of railroads and all other public service properties. To do this work properly involves much detailed work. These valuations must be practically separated into miles. This work has progressed to that point where within a short time the physical valuation of the railroads in Oklahoma can be accurately determined.

The Commission has published a map prepared by this department which has been distributed to the shippers and public schools of the State. This map has been a very valuable reference for busness interests of every class and character. It has been praised from every locality within the borders of the State. That it is an exceptionally well prepared work of its kind is indicated by the letter sent to the Commission from Mr. Julius Kruttschmitt operating head of the Harriman System, who pronounced it the most complete and valuable railroad map he had ever seen.

TELEPHONE DEPARTMENT.

The work of this department is somewhat similar to that of the engineering department so far as ascertaining the original and reproductive values of telephone property. Actual inventories and appraisements have been made of the plants at Purcell, Lexington, Enid, Anadarko, Durant, McAlester, Guthrie, Woodward, the Grant

County Rural and Pioneer company's plants at Pond Creek. In addition to these large plants, fifty-nine other plants have been. appraised during the last year.

This department has compiled maps of nineteen counties, showing the telephone lines operating within such counties. This work will be continued as rapidly as possible. This department compiled valuable data in the Western Union tax cases that had much to do in substantiating the state's position in those cases before the court.

Gas and electric light companies have been added to this department and investigations of certain properties of this character are now in progress.

The Commission also has under investigation a proposed order to reduce toll rates in the state, but by reason of so many rapid changes in the larger towns of the state requiring additional facilities, most companies have been taxed to their utmost financial limit to respond to these demands. This hearing will be concluded during the next few months.

PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.

In this department all private corporations make reports as to the amount of their stock, stockholders, agents, etc., and has been a great source of information to the general public in ascertaining the location or address of certain corporations. It has become more important since the act of the legislature requiring certain classes of corporations to pay a license tax, upon the payment of which the Commission is authorized to issue license for such corporation to do buisness in the ensuing year. To comply with this law it is necessary that all domestic and foreign corporations doing business in Oklahoma make an accurate report to the Commission annually. This keeps information of this character up to date. There are between twenty and thirty thousand domestic and foreign corporations now doing business in Oklahoma.

THE POLICY OF RAILROADS RETARD THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE.

When the Commission was organized, it found the railroad companies operated their lines so as to keep the point of production as far from the point of consumption as was possible for them to do. As an illustration, the Santa Fe Railroad company, refused to make joint rates on local business with other railroads on a basis that would move state traffic from other lines over its lines. People living on the Santa Fe other than at a junction point were forced to buy their coal in Colora lo or Kansas; lumber from Texas and Louisiana; brick, lime and cement to build up the cities of Oklahoma, pave the streets, was all hauled from distant states notwithstanding our people were ready to manufacture immense quantities of these products when rates could be made to transport them.

The Commission established reasonable rates upon all building and paving material, grain and grain products and coal. These rates were based upon similar rates found in existence in adjoining states, some of which had been in existence for many years. These commodities began to move; several large Portland cement mills were built; many brick plants were established and our state was being

built and our streets paved and our people fed with the products of Oklahoma. The railroads filed a suit in the Federal Court and enjoined the rates more for the purpose of destroying the policy of the State of Oklahoma than for the purpose of complaining of any particular rate. A rate may be too low today and too high tomorrow, but when people of the state become accustomed to buying the products from each other and paying the relatively low rate for the shorter distance, this policy is hard to destroy when once it becomes firmly established.

The Santa Fe increased its earnings on the rates the Commission made 172 per cent and increased its tonnage only 177 per cent. The "Katy" increased its earnings 90 per cent. Since the rates have been enjoined the earnings of the Santa Fe on state business has decreased more than 50 per cent. It only carries one-third of the tonnage since the Hook decision that it carried before the rates were enjoined. Railroads are forcing the people to buy products that have a long distance haul. If the state fails to destroy this policy of the railroads, Oklahoma will never be a distributing or a manufacturing state. When the packing house was established at El Reno, all the railroads which would probably be used to transport commodities too and from El Reno had a conference and agreed not to give El Reno any rates by which it could compete with other packing plants. The only concession that was made was a reduction from Fort Worth to Chicago of from sixty to fifty-five cents on the hundred pound on dressed products. This rate was of no service to El Reno because it had no distributing plant in Chicago. It was, therefore, decreed by the railroad companies that a packing plant could not exist at El Reno. Practically the same attitude has been declared toward Oklahoma. City, since the establishment of that plant, and if the present policy of the railroads is carried out, the packing plant at Oklahoma City will have to shut down. Manufacturing industries have never been abreast with the progress of civilization. This has been due to the railroads, and today manufacturing establishments cannot exist. except under some regulating power or by the grace of railroads themselves. All of that territory between California and Kansas City has been designated as consuming territory by railroads and any industry located in that belt, which includes Oklahoma, can only exist by virtue of the regulating power of the state or government.

VALUE OF RAILROAD PROPERTY IN OKLAHOMA.

According to the best information now available it would cost, on an average, to originally construct railroads in Oklahoma, about $15,000 per mile. There are some lines which cost considerably more. With the improvements that are usually added to a new line after first construction, including ballast and equipment, the railroads of Oklahoma, as they now stand, represent an outlay of between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars per mile. There are some main lines that will exceed this amount, but when branch lines are included, the above is a fair statement.

The Wichita Falls & Northwestern Railway company has been building in the west part of the state during the last year. The right of way was practically donated. With donations from towns and what

« ПретходнаНастави »