Don't Write, Yell!

At his plant in Smyrna, Del. (pop. 2,346), Farm Fertilizer Manufacturer Warner W. Price, Jr. decided to speak his piece to the Interstate Commerce Commission about the proposed 22% boost in railroad freight rates. Price got off a letter to the ICC opposing the increase, but he soon found that to get the ICC's full attention he would have to spread out letters like a farmer covering the north 40 with Price products. The ICC wanted him to send exactly 62 copies of his letter --24 for the ICC Secretary, 25 for the Washington lawyer representing the railroads interested in the rate increase and one to each of the ICC's 13 regional offices. Complaining to the U.S. Senate about the moss-grown ICC's apparent prejudice against the duplicating machine, Delaware's bureaucracy-baiting Republican Senator John Williams last week found the right' word for the 62-copy policy: "Ridiculous."

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