PROFESSIONAL PAPERS NO. 1

SERIES OF 1908

9.

JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

SUPERVISION AND CONTROL

OF RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

AN HISTORICAL ARGUMENT.

By JOSEPH NIMMO, Jr., LL.D.

Statistician and Economist.

FEBRUARY 8, 1908.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

PRESS OF JUDD & DETWEILER, INC.

JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUPERVISION AND CONTROL OF RAILWAY AFFAIRS.

In an address on Governmental Supervision of Railway Accounts, before the Association of Government Accountants, delivered at Washington, D. C., October 11, 1907, Professor Henry C. Adams, statistician and accountant of the Interstate Commerce Commission, declared that "the Government has undertaken to exercise a controlling influence upon the administration of railway properties, through the agency of their accounts." In this connection he made the following statements:

"In the exercise of that control, which it is universally conceded Government has the right to exercise over railway affairs, two methods are presented. One is by means of what is called judicial supervision. *. * * But there is another method, and a method which in its full development may become even more important; a method which many believe will prove to be the permanent method, a method which is destined to grow in influence and extent in jurisdiction. I refer to direct administrative supervision.

"Now, there is one thing in which this Government is woefully deficient, and that is in the development of any governmental administrative agencies, so far as industrial affairs are concerned. The marked difference between the German constitution and the American Constitution is that we overestimate the exercise of judicial functions, and underestimate the exercise of administrative or supervisory functions, whereas in Germany the reverse is true. They have a perfect administrative supervision, although the expressions at least of the rights of the individual are less definite and