time ago embrace just exactly what you are seeking to do here, in general terms?

Mr. JACOBSON. If it did it would be all right, Senator; but I say, we do not think there was enough mention about a thing of that sort. STATEMENT OF MR. A. L. FLYNN, EXPERT, WAREHOUSE COMMISSION OF MINNESOTA.

Mr. FLYNN. Mr. Chairman, I think what Mr. Jacobson wants me to tell you gentlemen is the general situation so far as the car shortage is concerned in the State of Minnesota; but what we say about Minnesota, of course, is equally true of North and South Dakota and Iowa, besause of the fact that the general production of grain is about the same all through those States; also it is of a little different type:

For two years past the department of United States Railroad Administration which was known as the car-service section has gotten out a bimonthly statement which showed the situation as far as the cars were concerned on the different railroads of the country, by groups, and among those the Northwestern group embraces the roads that served Minnesota, and there have been times-a number of them-when the railroads in that territory had only about 50 per cent, and in some cases less than that, of their normal supply of box cars on their own line, that including both their ownership and the ownership of other companies which travel over their roads; and it also included those cars which would come on their line and pass through the State loaded, or come back loaded from the West, and also when we started in in the fall we have kept this statement checked up since it was issued the beginning of June, we will say, or earlier than that; and I have taken this matter up with the carservice section and with the administration itself, and with the local car-service men in Chicago, with the idea of getting them to move their cars into that territory to take care of that grain movement in the fall, and the coal movement in the fall, which is very heavy, and the movement of potatoes, which is exceedingly heavy-and, speaking about potatoes, that is reflected much in the grain movement, because if we do not move the potatoes out of that country before frost comes, then it is necessary to have refrigerators for them, and in moving them they naturally take away a large number of box cars that would otherwise be used for grain, assuming that they were fit for it, and that reduces the visible supply of cars for grain movement.

Take the past season alone, we have moved 30,000 carloads of potatoes out of that territory, and of that, I should say, 20,000 or maybe 25,000 were moved by box cars before the frost came on in the early part of the fall or winter when we could have these box cars to move them out. You see, if you take 25,000 box cars and move them away from a territory where you are going to need them for grain, you have quite a shortage there for that one thing alone. But the trouble was that we could not seem to convince anybody that we knew just exactly what that country did need, although I have lived in it for 30 years and ought to know something about it, having been mixed up with the railroad business 15 years before I went to the

commission and the commission very kindly delegated to me the handling of the meanest job they had, and that is car shortage, and I have handled that ever since I have worked for the commission. That was one of the troubles, and then the other trouble is that we move out approximately a thousand cars of coal a day from the head of the Lakes. The shippers themselves and the receivers of the coal will always refuse to have their hard coal shipped to them in anything but a box car. There are quite a number of cars taken up by that movement; so, taking the whole thing into consideration, when we begin to move grain in large quantities, we are confronted every year-not one year, but every year-with a shortage of cars for grain movement, and there is a demand not only throughout the country, but a demand in Minneapolis, for outbound movement of grain for export. When the cars go out of the country they come back loaded with grain to Minneapolis, and under the pooling arrangement prescribed by the Railroad Administration-and I am not saying that pooling is not all right-these cars would be taken into Minneapolis and loaded there, and moved out with the exception of grain moving into Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania for milling in transit. They move on to destination and come back, and for the very reason that Mr. Jacobson has told you, they would crowd the outbound ports with carloads of grain and grain products, which they could not handle because the ships were not available. Even though a man might have secured his tonnage in advance, the ship might be delayed by storm, and when it got in it might have some defect that would make it need docking and overhauling, and as a result that grain would stay on the tracks there for from 10 days to 2 months, and I can remember at one particular time when the statement was made that there was a loss of $20,000 by the New York Central alone, where the cars were loaded with grain and grain products ready to be taken away-and that was not during the war; it was not a war shortage; it was just a natural congestion of stock that could not be handled.

The CHAIRMAN. What remedy would you propose for that?

Mr. FLYNN. My only idea of any remedy for that is that you have got to tell a man that if he has a million bushels of grain to ship he can not make the shipment until the ship is known to be at the dock, and that is an impossible requirement because when you tie a ship up at the dock you have a demurrage on that ship, such as Mr. Jacobson spoke of in the case of a man paying $25,000. If you could take your grain at the place where it was shipped from and move it on schedule to New York, for example, you would know it would go from Minneapolis to New York in a week, and then you could say that a ship yould be in on such a date. It would take one week to get it there. But instead of doing that you can ship a car out of Minneapolis to-day, and I only know one person who can ever know when it will get to New York, and that is the Almighty. Because you can not find out anything about when the cars will move, or how quick they will move, or how long they will be held on the side track or terminal, just because of the matter of which the Senator spoke, the lack of terminal facilities, and the lack of power to handle the stuff when it is at the terminals.

Senator POMERENE. There is another complaint in my section of the State, namely, that they have not coal cars enough for their manufacturing industries and are using the open top cars to haul the automobiles that are being sent to Senator Cummings' constitu

ents.

that

The CHAIRMAN. They could get along very well without them. Mr. FLYNN. I could answer that for you in a different way, this year unfortunately the citizens of Montana have suffered from the worst loss-if you would like to put it that way-on acount of crop shortage, and in order to try to help them out the administration made arrangements with regard to hay-of which they had a large stock and there were, I think, about 6,000 carloads of hay sent from the territory imediately tributary to Minnesota, and from Minnesota, into Montana.

Now, that demand was extraordinary, and because of that it was difficult for the people to get cars to load the bales of hay. The car that is most suitable for hay is a car that is made for moving automobiles. It is large and roomy, and in order to get a minimum of weight into the car, the commission prescribed 25,000 pounds. You must have quite a large car, otherwise wou can not get the minimum into it.

The car-service section-I will put it that way, not the administration, the car-service section-issued an order that none of those cars were to be used for loading hay but were either to be sent empty from that territory or were to be used to load east toward the automobile producing territory. I never have heard anything so ridicu lous in my life as that particular thing from a transportation standpoint, because an automobile is a self-propelling vehicle and if you could not get it into a car you could put gasoline in it and drive it. But you could not do that with hay.

The CHAIRMAN. May I direct your mind in another direction. You know that we have to do here with the legislative end of it. Mr. FLYNN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. We can not undertake here to direct the distribution of cars, of course. That is an administrative function, and it has got to be performed elsewhere. I think we are all convinced about the necessity of having something done. Testimony has accumulated here until there is no longer any room for doubt with regard to the inadequacy of these facilities. But what I am trying to find out now is what we can do. We can not attend to the shipping end of it. That belongs to the Committee on Commerce, and that committee is very jealous of its jurisdiction, and we are not permitted to interfere with the provisions which may be made with regard to furnishing the ships that will take the stuff abroad. But we are concerned in getting it to the ships. That is our business, in so far as legislation is required to get this grain and everything else intended for export to the ships promptly, and we have given the Interstate Commerce Commission in the last railroad act complete, plenary, absolute, comprehensive authority, not only to require the railroads to furnish themselves with engines and cars but with every other facility that goes to make up the train and the movement of the trains, and if there is anything more that we can do in that direction we want to do it.

I am doubtful whether we have given the commission the authority to require the railroads to build elevators. We have given them the authority to provide lighters, and everything of that kind, but I am inclined to think we have not given to the commission the authority to required the railroad companies to build elevators. Now, is that a practicable remedy?

Mr. FLYNN. Senator, I think that is absolutely the only remedy, because that is where all the shortage of cars comes in, or has for the last four or five years. There has never been a time in the fall when there has not been a congestion of cars on the seaboard at different ports, and as a result of that we have had all the way from 400 to 1,000 calls in the period of four months for pressing help for new cars for loading grain.

The CHAIRMAN. We have given the commission the authority to divert traffic; that is to say, if you are shipping grain to New York and there is a congestion in New York so that it can not reach the seaboard quickly, we have given the commission power to say that traffic shall go to Newport News, Philadelphia, or go to Boston. Whether it would do it or not, I do not know.

Mr. FLYNN. I should think that would help very materially. There is another thing which would help, and that is the equalization of rates through the Atlantic ports and Gulf ports, if that is allowed to stand.

Senator KELLOGG. Subsection 21 of section 402 provides as follows:

(21) The commission may. after hearing, in a proceeding upon complaint or upon its own initiative without complaint, authorize or require by order any carrier by railroad subject to this act, party to such proceeding, to provide itself with safe and adequate facilities for performing as a common carrier its car service as that term is used in this act, and to extend its line or lines: Provided, That no such authorization or order shall be made unless the commission finds, as to such extension, that it is reasonably required in the interest of public convenience and necessity, or as to such extension or facilities that the expense involved therein will not impair the ability of the carrier to perform its duty to the public.

It comes mighty near giving them the power.

The CHAIRMAN. My only doubt of that is whether the definition. of car service, which appears in the early part of that section, is sufficient to cover the case that has been suggested, namely, the provision for elevators.

Senator KELLOGG. This was intended evidently to mean that they should furnish car facilities for performing their car service. Facilities for performing car service means elevator terminals. It it is not clear, it can be made clear.

Mr. JACOBSON. That is the section that Senator Pomerene referred to, is it not?

Senator POMERENE. Yes.

Mr. JACOBSON. That is one as to which we have been told by the attorney general of our State that inasmuch as it was not exactly clear, they thought it would be necessary to report this bill, or if it can be done in any other way it does not make any difference. That is up to you gentlemen.

Senator KELLOGG. I do not say absolutely that that is the fact. I am just simply suggesting that that was the intention.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the commission has the power to order facilities which will be suitable for unloading freight, so that the car can be immediately, or within a reasonable time, restored to the service. I believe that. But it may not be quite as clear as it should be. Mr. JACOBSON. The public utilities commissioner of New York asked me at this meeting, "Where would you build these elevators in New York?" I said that the Baltimore & Ohio had the best terminals in Staten Island of any place in the United States. I said:

There is a good place on Staten Island, because vessels can go in there with 30 or 32 feet of water, and the Pennsylvania Railroad has bought up the Long Island Railroad, and there are very many places where grain elevators could be built in New York.

The CHAIRMAN. We have given the commission authority, for instance, if a trainload of cars goes into New York on the Pennsylvania and its lines are congested so it can not reach the seaboard and it can not reach the ships-we have given the commission the authority to say that the train shall pass on to the tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio, if it can reach the seaboard. There is no question about the complete authority of the commission in that respect; but if a company has not an elevator sufficient to handle its business I am not quite clear whether we have given the commission authority to order it to build that elevator or not.

Senator KELLOGG. I think we have.

Mr. JACOBSON. Philadelphia is represented here, Mr. Chairman, by Mr. Clemmer, of the Philadelphia Exchange, who, I think, would be glad to be heard.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to hear Mr. Clemmer.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. B. CLEMMER, SECRETARY OF THE COMMERCIAL EXCHANGE OF PHILADELPHIA.

Mr. CLEMMER. Mr. Chairman, we have in Philadelphia two export elevators, one on the Pennsylvania Railroad with a capacity of two and a quarter million bushels; actual working capacity about two million bushels; the Port Richmond elevator on the Philadelphia & Reading, an export elevator, with a capacity of one half million bushels; actual working capacity about one million bushels. The elevator on the Pennsylvania called the Girard Point elevator, is comparatively a new elevator, having been built about five or six years ago, and is an up-to-date fireproof elevator, making the insurance rates very favorable.

The Port Richmond elevator on the Philadelphia & Reading, is an old antiquated-wood elevator, so that the insurance rates are now practically phohibitive.

This makes our export elevator capacity very small. A millionbushel elevator is not more than about two or three boat loads of wheat, so that the Port Richmond elevator, if it can be used-though as I say, the insurance rates are so high on account of the wooden structure that it can not be fully utilized-is really prohibitive. It is impossible to accumulate any large amount of grain there for export, and consequently the grain has to be hauled back. If the steamers are delayed, which is sometimes the case, there is no accumulation possible there to accommodate the steamers that come along to be