SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART III. 



109 



peting for the same business, then this discrimination began to grow. The 

 larger shipper— the man that could control the largest amount of 

 freight— he was given better terms. It was a case of bargain and sale 

 now. The railroad says, "If you will ship all your stuff over our line, 

 we will give you such and such a rate." It was a question of bargain. 

 And then, in a little while that man's business began to grow and grow 

 and grow, and his neighbors in the same business began to fail and fail 

 and fail, and in a little while this man that had received the discrim- 

 ination in the first place got to be bigger than the railroad, and he would 

 tell them what freight he would give them, and they had to accept it. 

 That is the way this discrimination grew up. 



Now, gentlemen, the interstate commerce law was a law passed for 

 the purpose of preventing all kinds of discrimination as between individ- 

 uals, as between places, as between commodities. The method that the 

 commerce law has adopted to prevent this discrimination is found in the 

 sixth section of the law, which provides that railways must make a 

 schedule of rates between all places on its own line, and the new law 

 says on its own line and on other lines. In other words, the law requires 

 that a schedule of rates shall be made between every railroad station in 

 the United States; that when these rates were made— when these sched- 

 ules were made— they should be filed in every railway station for the 

 inspection of the public, and the new law requires that they shall be 

 kept filed in railway stations for the inspection of the public in such way 

 that they can be reasonably and easily inspected. Now, that is a big 

 contract, a*s I will show you later. After these schedules have been made, 

 the law' says that the railway shall receive neither more nor less than 

 those rates from any shipper, under a penalty of twenty thousand dollars 

 for each offense against the law. The law says that if any officer of a 

 railroad company, or any agent of a railroad company shall by any device 

 whatever accept or receive a greater or less compensation, that oflicer 

 shall be subject— that agent— it may be an agent that receives only three 

 or four hundred dollars a month— shall be subject to a penalty of twenty 

 thousand dollars, of not less than one thousand nor more than twenty 

 thousand dollars for each offense, and in addition to be imprisoned in the 

 penitentiary for a period of not less than one year nor more than five 

 years. Nov,', those are the enormous penalties that are imposed upon the 

 railroad corporation and the railroad officers and agents. This same law 

 says that if you, gentlemen, as shippers, shall solicit, accept or receive 

 any rebate, or by any device get your freight passed over the railroad at 

 less than these schedule rates, you, individually, shall be subject to a 

 fine of not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty thousand 

 dollars for each offense, in addition to which you shall be subject to 

 imprisonment in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one year 

 nor more than five years, and in addition you shall be liable to forfeit to 

 the United States three times the amount of the discrimination, or the 

 value of the discrimination which you shall receive. 



Now, gentlemen, these are the conditions that the railway companies 

 and the railway officers and shippers are up against under this law; and 

 you will notice the shippers will get the worst of it. 



