contract carriers in urging that this be done. As has been repeatedly said, however, this, where it might exist, presents no case requiring legislative remedies-rather, it is one of enforcement and enforcement only.

And, of course, that is what we have been talking about.

Those who have been proposing legislative changes to meet the alleged buy-and-sell problem have been repeatedly challenged to produce a single case that cannot be soundly classified as either for-hire or private truck operation by applying the provisions of the present statute pursuant to the primary business test.

If it be said that such enforcement presents difficulties because of lack of personnel or other reasons, it certainly does not follow that those difficulties will in any way be alleviated by amending the law.

The law is clear. In order to be classified as a "private carrier," the "primary business" test must be met. Anyone attempting to place himself in that category without meeting that test should be stopped by enforcement action and we again submit that the determination of the type of operation meeting that test is no problem of any magnitude under the rules which have now been laid down.

If this were not true, the Private Truck Council of America would itself join in the request for additional legislation. Its members would be vitally interested in eliminating any illegal activities conducted by parties who might improperly claim to be private carriers.

We are all shippers or receivers by common and contract carriers. We are very interested in seeing that they are properly protected within their own spheres of operation. We merely contend that we also have our proper spheres and should not be harassed and hampered within their limits.

The for-hire carriers would undoubtedly like to see the rules set up in such a fashion that all transportation of either persons or property would be turned over to them exclusively. We don't criticize their desire to better their situation, but there are many, many reasons why private carriage has an important part to play in the business picture.

I mention as examples-the flexibility of shipment afforded by the use of one's own vehicles with the customer appreciation and good will resulting from the better services rendered, the opportunities for special handling of certain products requiring personnel trained in that handling-the need for special equipment, perhaps the trucks themselves, to transport perishable commodities having peculiarities of their own.

Of course, other cogent reasons could be enumerated but that would labor the point, which is simply that private truck operation is definitely a part of the business world, it fills needs which would not be filled were it not in the picture and it is in the public interest not to eliminate or interfere with it.

All of this has been recognized. I repeat that our battles have been fought and our status affirmed. We are beseeching the honorable members of this committee to aid us by not reopening the questions which have been answered only after great expenditures of time, effort, and money.

Senate bill No. 1677 contains the proposed amendment to which we are voicing objection. For the reasons given, we respectfully request that the committee act in the negative on it.

We object also to clause (2) of the bill S. 1384 which would add a new subsection 203 (c) to the Interstate Commerce Act to provide in part that "no person shall engage in any transportation for compensation" by motor vehicle without a certificate of public convenience and necessity or a permit from the Commission.

And it is that "for compensation," that we dread.

This would be a superfluous provision for the reason that section 203 (a) (1) of the act already provides that no common carrier by motor vehicle shall operate without such a certificate and section 209 (a) (1) already provides that no contract carrier by motor vehicle shall operate without such a permit.

The effect of the proposed new subsection 203 (c), therefore, would be to reopen the whole controversy and battle against legitimate private truck operation by expressly writing into the statute a "compensation" clause on a basis of which the for-hire carrier interests would renew their contention that the primary business test is to be replaced by a test under which no one in any kind of business could operate trucks "for compensation" without leave of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Senator PURTELL. Now, may I interrupt?

As I gather from your testimony you don't differ at all in principle from what these proposed amendinents would accomplish. You simply feel that a decision has been made. Am I correct in that?

Mr. EDMONDSON. Yes, sir; absolutely. We join the common and the contract carriers in the basic idea that illegitimate carriage should be stopped.

We say it should be stopped. We say it can be stopped under the law as it is now written and that is the reason that we say it is only a matter of enforcement, not a change in the law.

Senator PURTELL. Then I gather that, in principle, you don't object-well, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Do you agree that no person should engage in transportation for compensation, assuming compensation is what we conceive it to be, for pay, for hire?

Mr. EDMONDSON. I doubt that, because of the connotation that that clause might be given by virtue of the interpretations of it that have been urged. We don't hold a brief here at all for anyone engaged in a buy-and-sell operation. We want them put out of business, too, if any there be. We don't think there are as many as the contract carriers evidently think. If there are any, they should be eliminated.

Senator PURTELL. Well, not only the contract carriers, but evidently that is how the ICC thinks from the testimony given by Chairman Clarke this morning.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Mr. Chairman, I know I am repeating when I go back so often on this, sort of like Father Divine, "Peace, it's wonderful."

Senator PURTELL. It is wonderful.

Mr. EDMONDSON. We have had this 16-year-old battle on our hands. We want to relax a little bit now, and we want to maintain stability as businessmen, the stability of operations as we are now conducting them, under the law, and justifiably so.

Mr. Quinlan, here, has been through this litigation from the very beginning, and that is why I wanted him up here with me. He knows it backward, forward, and by heart. He knows the trials and tribu

lations that private industry had to meet when they were battling this question before the Commission and before the courts, and that "for compensation" was the magic noose, let's put it that way, that we managed to finally get away from. But we don't want anybodylet's use the words "for hire"-we don't want any so-called private carrier engaged in for-hire operations. In fact, we might say this, and to me this is the way the law reads now: If I run a bakery, I sell bread, and I send my trucks out, loaded with bread, to grocery stores. The salesman makes his deliveries.

At the end of the run if he wants to pick up some flour or some sugar or something that I am going to use in my bakery and bring it back to me, that is legitimate private carriage. But if he goes down to the end of that line, and because he has an empty truck he picks up a truckload of drugs, let us say, and brings them back to sell to the drugstore, he should be prosecuted, and we should be prosecuted for permitting him to do it.

Senator PURTELL. And you may feel that ICC presently has the machinery by which it can be done without the need for a change in the law.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Yes, sir.

Senator PURTELL. I think I get your thinking.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Another point. You see, this is a battle that was fought out quite a number of years ago, and some of the things that we are saying here today, that I am saying, that Mr. Quinlan has said, may sound a little extreme, but they are the result of the fight that we fought.

Of the present Commission-I have a note here--I believe that Commissioner Mitchell is the only one who was on the Commission at that time. Is that right, Mr. Quinlan?

Mr. QUINLAN. That is correct.

Mr. EDMONDSON. I don't believe that the present members of the Commission realize quite how important what you might otherwise call the minor objections we are advancing can be, in view of that history.

Mr. QUINLAN. May I cite one thing, Mr. Chairman?

Senator PURTELL. You may.

Mr. QUINLAN. The Chairman referred to being in the business of for-hire transportation, and receiving "pay," I believe, was an expression that was used.

Senator PURTELL. Well, there we get into an area again, that is subject to many constructions.

"Received compensation"; it is difficult to say what it is to be for

hire,

Mr. QUINLAN. That points up the thing we fear, Mr. Chairman. At the present time, the phrase, "for compensation," is used in the common- and contract-carrier definitions, and it was on a basis of that phrase that the people who desire to restrict the legitimate scope of private truck operation contended, for example, in the LenoirSchenley case, that a furniture manufacturer could not deliver the furniture he made to his own customers.

They contended that those words "for compensation" meant to receive pay, and that anyone who received compensation for transportation was thereby automatically a common or a contract carrier.

Now, that carried to its logical extreme, meant that, in the Lenoir case, because a furniture manufacturer made a charge to his customers for delivering the furniture he sold to them, he was operating "for compensation." They said that should be the test, rather than the test of his primary business. Carried further, the argument, in effect, was that if a manufacturer or a distributor of goods even so much as had a difference in his price between his plant or warehouse and a delivery price, that that meant he was transporting for compensation and therefore unlawfully.

It went further to the effect, and here is where we entered the extreme realm of absurdity, that anyone who so much as reflected the costs of operating his own trucks in determining his price structure was operating for compensation.

The courts saw the absurdity of that, the three-judge court, after the Commission did so, and said, in effect, the phrase "for compensation" in the present law doesn't mean that at all, but was merely a convenient phrase that Congress used in referring to "for hire" transportation.

But, Mr. Chairman, if we have the phrase "for compensation" written into this act in another context, for example, in a provision that says directly "no one shall transport for compensation," and so on, we are convinced that the litigation will be renewed, and I think we have good reason, in view of the extent to which those arguments were carried before the Commission and the court previously.

We have, incidentally, copies, of our briefs in the Lenoir case and the Schenley Distilleries case, and those two cases as combined before the district court, should you wish to receive them for your correspondence file.

Senator PURTELL. We are somewhat familiar with them, and probably we have them on file, but rather than find later that we haven't, we will mark them "Exhibits 6, 7, and 8," and have them available for the committee.

You may proceed.

Mr. EDMONDSON. All right, sir, I am through, almost. The effect of the proposed new subsection 203 (c) therefore would be to reopen the whole controversy and battle against legitimate private truck operation by expressly writing into the statute a "compensation clause on a basis of which the for-hire carrier interests would renew their contention that the primary business test is to be replaced by a test under which no one in any kind of business could operate trucks "for compensation" without leave of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Also, that "compensation" would include making a charge for delivery of one's own products, or even a difference in delivered price as compared to an f. o. b. plant price, or even so much as reflecting, in one's determination of prices for his own products or services, the costs of operating his own trucks to move his raw materials or deliver his own products. The proposed new subsection 203 (c), in other words, would be a wide-open invitation to a repetition of the unsuccessful efforts in the litigation preceding the Brooks Transportation decision to secure an interpretation of the statute which could ultimately result in the virtual elimination of operation of trucks in and by all kinds of private enterprise whether manufacturing, wholesaling, or retailing.

Similar objections apply to the amendment which we understand has been or will be offered by the Transportation Association of America.

Thank you for your consideration and courtesy in hearing me. And I thank you, particularly, for taking me out of turn and letting me go home.

Senator PURTELL. We are very happy to have you. I would like to make it clear to those witnesses who have not appeared before committees before, that the lack of other members in no way indicates lack of interest of the subcommittee on the subjects we are considering. But we do have situations arise where there are conflicting meetings. I can assure the witnesses appearing here that their testimony is available to the other members of the subcommittee, and beyond question will be studied, as will be the testimony given here today.

So don't feel, because there are no other members here, that there is lack of interest in the testimony you give.

Have you any questions, counsel?

Mr. BARTON. Just one, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Clark pointed out this morning the difficulty of having the courts following the findings in the Brooks Transportation case, and the Lenoir case. I would like to know what you think about having that incorporated into the statutory law so that it will be clear for all courts that this is the law enacted by Congress and not an interpretation of it by the courts.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Let me see, sir, if I follow you. Do you mean to incorporate the primary business test into the law itself?

Mr. BARTON. Yes.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Now, personally, my reaction to that would be negative still, even though that seems to be a rather ridiculous attitude to take, because we are wholly in accord with the primary business test, but we say that the law as it is written has now been clearly interpreted. The only point of disagreement that I would have with Chairman Clarke on that is that there is any marked uncertainty in the way the law and the decisions should be interpreted. Now, as long as we are all human, there is probably going to be room for differences of opinion. But this is about as clear a rule as there could posisbly be. We are just afraid that if what you suggest be done, that that be incorporated into the statute, that the very fact that Congress has amended its law would indicate a change of interpreta

tion.

Senator PURTELL. It wouldn't follow that that would be so.
Mr. EDMONDSON. No, sir; it is the danger we fear.

Senator PURTELL. As a matter of fact, you know a report accompanies every bill reported out, and we find it in our work necessary at times to be very specific in that report as to congressional intent, so there isn't too much of an area for disagreement in interpretation. Mr. EDMONDSON. No, sir; in one of these exhibits that we submit, and I will have to ask Mr. Quinlan which one it was, where the legislative history is set forth. Would you take over on that?

Mr. QUINLAN. The briefs before the Commission, Mr. Chairman, in the Lenoir and Schenley cases have appended to them a legislative history of the present act, but may I say that, in my opinion, having been through all of this litigation, Mr. Chairman, the law could not be more clear than it now is, in the light of the decision