ators would find in every line of
the bill a very serious objection to its adoption. They started
in to object to some provisions of the fourth and fifth sections.
The Senator who has just concluded his remarks got over to the
thirteenth section and I believe went one or two sections beyond
that, and if there are any more speeches to be made against the
bill I suppose the very last section of it will be attacked before
a vote is taken.

"The Senate conferees regarded it as their duty to cling to every
portion of the Senate bill, as it was passed, that they could cling
to and reach an agreement between the conferees of the House and
Senate. Hence it was that all these portions of the Senate bill
not objected to by the House conferees were allowed to remain in
the bill by the Senate conferees, the Senate conferees, as a matter
of course, believing that the Senate of the United States knew what
it was doing when it voted for the bill in the first place, and
thinking that it remained of the same mind still. . . .

"The Senator from Georgia assaults the bill because he says that
under it the provisions are so rigid that the railroads of the
country can do no business at all. The Senator from Oregon assaults
the bill because he says the fourth section amounts to nothing,
and that the words 'under like circumstances and conditions' ought
to be taken out.

"The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] assaults the bill because
he says it is going to interfere with foreign commerce, and that
the fourth section will be construed as not allowing a rebate of
five cents a hundred upon commerce shipped across the country for
exportation. . . .

"So I might go on referring to every Senator who has spoken against
the bill, and nearly every one of them has founded his objections
to the bill upon the use of the language that he had previously
voted for in the Senate of the United States before the bill went
to conference at all."

Men who opposed any legislation at all never supposed that the
conference report would be agreed to, and I so stated in the Senate
of the United States. I pointed out, moreover, that when they were
met by a conference report the railroad men of the Senate rallied
to the support of the transportation companies. I continued:

"Sir, it has just come to the point where you have got to face the
music and vote for an interstate commerce bill, or vote it down.
That is all there is to it. I have nothing mor