against the other. There is a tremendous number of operating routes between each gateway. It literally came out at the number that I quoted.

I don't know all of the routes, but just take, for example, from Dallas to Kansas City and St. Louis. You have the route of the Frisco, the Katy, the Rock Island, the Santa Fe, you have the routes of the T. & P., C., O. & G., Missouri Pacific, the routes of the Cottonbelt, KSC-I could name 50 of them.

Then from Kansas City to St. Louis you have the Missouri Pacific, Rock Island, Wabash, and the G., M. & O., and the C., B & Q., Katy, and the Frisco. Multiply one against the other, and you have a tremendous opportunity to make routes.

Mr. HINSHAW. For the benefit of our distinguished and erudite friend, I think you should say that it is the theory of permutations and combinations applied to route segments that results in that figure. Mr. STALEY. That is very clear.

Mr. HARRIS. You are not going to name all 4 million of those, are you?

Mr. STALEY. I Would like to make this point, Mr. Hale. Those are authorized routes and there are many other junctions through which rates could be applied which are not authorized. For example

Mr. HALE. I want to be quite serious. If the Ford Co. wants to ship an automobile from Detroit to Dallas, they must know pretty accurately from experience, if not otherwise, how much it is going to cost, don't they?

Mr. STALEY. Yes, sir; and they have a very large movement of automobile parts from Detroit to Dallas. They have an assembly plant at Dallas. They channelize that business and they use perhaps 5 or 6 routes for the movement of those automobile parts.

Mr. HALE. Do they use 5 or 6 routes at 5 or 6 different rates?

Mr. STALEY. No, the rates are all the same.

Mr. HALE. What difference does it make how many routes there are if the rates are all the same?

Mr. STALEY. It doesn't make any difference except that when you get one of these silly fourth section orders that you have to translate into a tariff publication and then you have to spell out one by one each of these individuals routes. Then instead of having your rates published on half a page it takes 60 or 80 or 100 pages to publish your rates and your routes. The fourth section order requires you to do this. The rates are all the same.

I have a case here. From Houston, Tex. to Travelers Rest, S. C., we went to work and checked out 76,000 routes or combinations. So many routes up to Memphis, so many to New Orleans, so many to Baton Rouge, so many beyond to other gateways. It is just astronomical. This is a big complex system of railroads.

Mr. HALE. I don't know whether the Ford Motor Co. ships any cars by rail to Dallas.

Mr. STALEY. I can answer that. They do.

Mr. HALE. I would suppose that the Ford factory would send a car down to the freight station of some railroad and the railroad would do the routing and send the Ford Motor Co. a bill. Isn't that the way it would work?

Mr. STALEY. The Ford Motor Co. doesn't send any carload of freight to a railroad company without saying what route they want

used. I will give you something that perhaps might be illustrative of something. The business of the Quaker Oats Co. in a year, if it were in a single freight train, would extend from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, through Rockford and Chicago, Ill., and Tecumseh, Mich., and Toledo and Akron and Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg and Philadelphia, New York City, up to Boston. That would be our business for 1

year. I could take that business and if it were all between Detroit and Dallas, route every car over a different route and never repeat the routes, for 30 years. That is the complexity of your railroad system. Mr. HALE. Doesn't this show the great development of our railroad system?

Mr. STALEY. Yes, but it is being impoverished by these orders of the Commission that they publish these terrific tomes of nonsense. This used to be a slight little book of 200 pages 15 years ago. Then we began to get these fourth section orders and they published rates and they published a third of a page of rates and 40 pages of routes. Then it got so big they took the alcohol rates out of it. That was 40 pages. Now it is 400 pages. Then it got so big they took the paper rates out. Then it got so big they took the binding twine rates out. Then it got so big they took the pipe rates out. Then it got so big they took some brick rates out. But it still kept growing bigger and bigger. The thing that used to be 250 pages is now 1,194. They have had all these tariffs split out, and it is all because of the fourth section circuity limitations that the Commission has said to you that they don't think is any good.

Mr. HALE. I want to ask you some questions.

Mr. STALEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HALE. If I want to ship something from Detroit to Dallas, whether it is a motorcar or a package of Quaker Oats, I probably would care acutely how much I would have to pay for getting the job done, but as long as the rate was the same over all the different routes why should I be so excited as to whether the commodity, whatever it was, was going to move by Memphis or by some other route, any one of the 4,717,000 routes.

Mr. STALEY. Mr. Congressman, there are many reasoins why shippers route their freight. In the first place, they want to know where the freight is, so if they have to get out and trace it or reconsign it, they know on what route it is being moved. For example, a man in Dallas, Tex., if he is on the Rock Island Railroad may want to give the Rock Island the haul. That is a kind of long haul out of Dallas up to Chicago. If he is on the T. & P. he may want to give it to the T. & P. There are many reasons why shippers select different routes. Take a railroad like the Katy, which comes to St. Louis. They can't discriminate in what lines beyond St. Louis they will have routes with. They have to give open routes to the New York Central, the Nickel Plate, the B. & O., the Pennsylvania, the C. & E. I. That is what creates this multiplicity of routes.

Mr. HALE. Where is the Quaker Oats Co.'s principal factory? Mr. STALEY. Our largest plant is at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We also have a large one in Maine, at Lubec.

Mr. HALE. Good for you.

Mr. STALEY. We have about 25 or more of them.

Mr. HALE. If you want to ship a package of Quaker oats from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Eldorado, Ark., has not the Quaker Oats

Co. got some favorite way of doing it, or do they do it a different way each time?

Mr. STALEY. We can't use the same route each time. We might like to do so. We might like to give it to the Rock Island Railroad all the way from Cedar Rapids to Eldorado, or we might move it over the Illinois Central and the Missouri Pacific. There are various routes for getting that freight down there. For example, at Cedar Rapids if we ship Quaker oats-we ship many other things besides rolled oats, and if you want me to give you a recitation of our products, I will be glad to put it on the record—we bring grain inbound from various origins on different lines, and the line that brings in the grain gets the product out. I might bring it in on the Illinois Central and I have to ship it out on the Illinois Central. If I bring it in on Milwaukee I ship it out on the Milwaukee. We don't always have complete freedom in the selection of routes.

Mr. HALE. I don't want to prolong this discussion, but it does seem to me that a shipper has every reason to complain of complicated rate structures and big books and the difficulty of finding out whether the rate from Cedar Rapids to Eldorado is x, y, z, but I don't see why you need to complain about the fact that there are a whole lot of routes because that is only because our traffic system is so highly developed.

Mr. STALEY. Mr. Congressman, this little fourth of a page names all of the rates from Missouri and Oklahoma and Texas to every station in 10 Southern States. My rate clerk can check that rate and find the route in a minute. If the railroads have to comply literally with this fourth section order that the Commission has out against these rates-and there are thousands of those horrible orders -we will end up with 50 or 60 or 70 pages and it will take a man a long time to ferret through them to find out whether he can ship.

We are at Joplin, Mo., for example. You say why don't I ship over the Frisco to Memphis or the Missouri Pacific? The Kansas City Southern comes in to me and they say, "We are hauling some stuff in here at pretty cheap rates. Give us some of this good canned dog food traffic outbound." We say, "We will give you some of that business.”

We will ship it K. C. S. to Oklahoma City, Rock Island to Memphis, maybe N. C. & St. L. to Chattanooga. Right away I don't know whether I am within that 33% percent limitation as to circuity. We have to get out three mileage tables and check the mileages of the K. C. S. and check the mileage of the Rock Island and check the mileage of the N. C. & St. L. and then check the short line distance from Joplin to Chattanooga. That is stupid. I don't want to be bothered with that stuff. I know what the rate is from Joplin to Chattanooga. Let me ship it any way that seems reasonable.

Mr. HALE. Would repeal of section 4 make you happier or would your life be easier then?

Mr. STALEY. Mr. Congressman, we are not asking for the repeal of section 4 in 6208. We are only asking that you do what the Commission has recommended, and that is to modify section 4 so that relief for circuitous routes is an automatic thing, and that they won't be required to issue these orders with all of these peculiar and insanitary limitations.

Mr. HALE. That is 6208.

Mr. STALEY. Yes, sir. We favor that.

It would make a very high majority of all the shippers of the country happy.

Mr. HALE. Quite seriously, it will reduce the number of people that you have to employ to figure out shipping routes, and rates is that right?

Mr. STALEY. I think it will very greatly expedite our ability to do business with the carriers and, Mr. Congressman, where it took me 7 months to get my rates in effect after they were approved, I should be able to get them into effect in 45 days. That doesn't apply only to one thing. That is just typical of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other rates adjustments that are before the carriers.

Another thing: I call up the railroad company and I say, "We want to talk with you about the rate on"-any commodity, say horse meat, from Lubec, Maine, or some place, Bellows Falls, Vt., to Marion. They say to me, "We would like to check that out," but it may be a month or 2 months before I get an answer, because their rate clerks are tied up on these fourth section orders. They are short of manpower in their traffic departments because they are spending an inordinate amount of time complying with these fantastic and unrealistic orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

We would get some results if we got rid of this circuity thing.

Mr. HALE. Let me say that I am very pleased to know that you have a plant in Lubec. I didn't realize you did. It isn't in my district, but Lubec

Mr. STALEY. We ship Puss 'N' Boots from Lubec which is the favor ite cat food of many cats.

Mr. HINSHAW. Will you say that again?

Mr. STALEY. We ship Puss 'N' Boots from Lubec, and it is the favorite cat food of many cats.

Mr. HINSHAW. We also have a sizable operation at Bloomington, Calif., where we make this cat food. We are getting ready to make dog food there. We have some other operations in California.

Mr. HALE. In the sardine capital of Maine, do you mix Quaker Oats with sardines?

Mr. STALEY. We make cat food with sardines. Cat food has a sardine base, sardines and Quaker Oats. That is why it is so good. Mr. HALE. I am in favor of it.

Mr. STALEY. I want to emphasize again that we are not asking you to repeal the fourth section or to make it possible for a railroad to make a rate between two points and disregard the fourth section. All that we want you to do is to fix it so that when a railroad has a rate in, any other circuitous route can meet that rate without further ado.

Mr. DOLLIVER. I understand from your last statement that you ap prove of the principle which is supposed to be embodied in long- and short-haul costs, that a higher rate should not be charged for a shorter haul than for a longer haul, is that right?

Mr. STALEY. I would like to answer that in this way: I don't approve of any such thing, but I am here speaking for the league and speaking for the Quaker Oats Co. and as a citizen. I am supporting 6208. If it were in my hands-incidentally, the league is behind this, too-we would go for outright repeal of fourth section, but we are not advocating that now. You have substantially that in 6141. We are taking

no position on that. We are going for 6208, which simply gets away from this circuity limitation deal. If you ask me as Dick Staley what I think about the fourth section

Mr. DOLLIVER. Yes; I ask you.

Mr. STALEY. I think it is an evil thing, but many people don't agree with me, but the majority of the league members agree that the whole fourth section should be repealed. But that isn't the purpose of this discussion. I am not advocating that here.

I hope the day will come when I can advocate it but I don't do it today.

Mr. DOLLIVER. I am glad to hear that Quaker Oats has a good many installations and I know many of them in my congressional district. Mr. STALEY. Thank you, sir.

Mr. DOLLIVER. In fact, in my home town you have quite an office force there, supervising the elevators.

Mr. STALEY. You must be in Fort Dodge.
Mr. DOLLIVER. Yes; in Fort Dodge.

Seriously now, you made a very comprehensive and interesting statement and brought out a segment of this discussion which had not heretofore come to my attention. The thing you are complaining about essentially, as I understand it, is all this paperwork you have to go through in order to comply with section 4; is that it?

Mr. STALEY. Precisely, sir. I can't put this in the record, of course, but when they got my dog food fourth section proposal ready, it consisted of about 11 or 12 pages of narrative description, and then there is 1 page with a map, 2 more, a dozen or 15 pages the most complicated mess of junk that you ever heard of which is required by the terms of the Commission's rules of practice relating to that. We want to get rid of it and fix it so I can find the rate and not spend half a day finding out how I can rock the ship.

Mr. DOLLIVER. Your complaint at this time is not against section 4 but its administration in which the Commission has said that in order to apply that rule they have to specify all the circuitous routes over which the rate is applicable.

Mr. STALEY. That is substantially right, yes, sir.

Mr. DOLLIVER. If the Commission itself would change its ruling in that respect or get some "nudge" from this committee or the Congress to do it, that would satisfy your complaint, would it not, without interference with the principle embodied in the long-and-short-haul clause?

Mr. STALEY. Mr. Congressman, I am glad you asked that question. The National Industrial Traffic League and this railroad tariff research group believed the Commission could, by taking a fresh look at the law, interpret it in a manner which would permit them to give relief without imposing these onerous limitations and synthetic limitations on the routing of rates. So the railroads filed a petition with the Commission for blanket relief of that kind. We spent many thousands of dollars, literally, in the league in the preparation of testimony. We filed a brief, my name happens to be on it, pointing out these terrible things which happen to us. The Commission finally said "We don't believe that we have that aunthority under the law." They would not agree with us. But they said "We agree with you that these things