Draft Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman delivered at Chicago, Illinois to the American Trucking Association

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S PRATIONAL U.S. When at the first session of this Congress transporta- this to which tion legislation was first broached, A Committee of Six, wilned Those representing equally the railroads and labor, had made A certain recommendations to the President concerning things It believod essential to remody the transportation ills of the country then rampant. The condition of the railroads undoubtedly was then acute, but whether railroad problems, were more other methods of theys serious than those of it would be diffi- postation cult to say. At any rate, we can say that the railroads' problems were being brought to the attention of the public more openly and constantly, and we know that the railroads maintained effective publicity organizations to keep their plight before the public. For these and other reasons there was a quite prevalent opinion, which indeed found its way into the subsequent hearings before the Committees on Interstate Commerce of the Senate and of the House and on to the floors of Congress in the debates on the bills, that transportation legislation was quite apt to be legislation for the sole benefit of the railroads, at the expense of other forms of transportation, particularly the motor opera- tors and the water carriers. While it is true that the recommendations of the Committee of Six went more directly to the railroad phase of the problem, there were many