538 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



is not feasible or practical, but the Lake Shore and Michigan South- 

 ern Road, also the Pennsylvania Railroad contract to haul pas- 

 sengers from Chicago to New York in eighteen hours, but they 

 charge an extra fare for doing so. If their train is late they are 

 penalized and have to refund to the passenger a certain percentage 

 of the fare that is charged. They will also agree to haul you on 

 a much slower train at a much lower fare. Why not to this extent 

 put live stock on the same parity with individuals. If the railroads, 

 by their delayed service, are trying to force the live stock men into 

 conceding a higher rate of freight, I think they are pursuing a bad 

 policy. As I have said before, they go out and solicit the live stock 

 trade and send out educational trains costing them thousands of 

 dollars, advocating the increase in the production of live stock. 

 The damage claims to the big trunk line railroads must necessarily 

 amount to a vast amount of money in the course of a year, and it 

 has always seemed to me that this could be eliminated by better 

 and more prompt delivery of live stock at the different markets. 



The shipping contract which the railroad obligates the shipper 

 to sign is a jug-handled affair. A shipper is obligated to sign this 

 contract, stipulating what the valuation of his live stock shall be 

 regardless of whether they are worth ten dollars per head or one 

 hundred and fifty dollars per head. The shipper is obliged to pay 

 a certain rate of freight regardless of whether he gets first-class 

 service or fourth-class service. 



The people created the railroads, gave them their license to do 

 business and I think that now it is our province to dictate to them 

 what their treatment of us shall be. We are paying the freight, 

 and they should give us a service in comparison with the money 

 that we are paying them, but in a large percentage of cases we are 

 not getting what we pay for. If live stock rates are too low and 

 the railroads can show us that they are too low, let us advocate 

 that they be allowed to make a reasonable increase, but in doing 

 so let us ask and require of the railroads that they give us first-class 

 service on our live stock. There is no way of estimating the loss 

 which occurs to the live stock industry all over the country on ac- 

 count of the delay in the delivery of their stock to the markets. 

 The loss in shrinkage, the arrival of stock on the late markets, the 

 depreciation in prices, the bad condition of the live stock caused by 

 the delay, costs the live stock industry of the country millions of 

 dollars per year. You may ask me what my solution of the evil 

 is and as I said before, while I am not a railroad man, but I would 



