FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PATT I. 35 



nately we are not strong enough to do otherwise. Second, we 

 are common carriers and take anybody's business. If a con- 

 signment of business amounts to millions of dollars, no trans- 

 portation company can stand away and say, no, we'll not take 

 it. There is a company who does not handle private refrigera- 

 tor cars, which built a lot of their own. But they are peculiarly 

 situated and have a very large fruit business in southern Cali- 

 fornia. They are able to ignore the owner of a private refrig- 

 erator car. But it is all a matter of competition. 



I think that perhaps the managers of a dozen railroads could 

 get together in a room not as big as this, perhaps, and say, we 

 will now stop paying mileage for private refrigerator cars ; but 

 the interstate commerce law says it would be in restraint of 

 trade. We have never been able to put our names to anything 

 legal or binding in that respect, and the consequence is the 

 owner of private cars, or the man who controls any vast amount 

 of business, is able to go to some railroad and say, — now, we 

 will give you all our business if you will handle it and give us a 

 cent a mile for the use of our cars. There is no one of us alone 

 strong enough to stand up against that sort of thing. I say, you 

 gentlemen have made that thing possible. You have been so 

 afraid that railroads would get together and do wicked things, 

 that you have prevented us from defending ourselves. 



Mr. Wallace: I think Mr. Delano could illustrate this 

 whole matter if he could take his pencil and tell us what he gets 

 for hauling a car load of beef from the Missouri River to Chi- 

 cago, and then tell us what he gets for hauling a car load of 

 cattle from the Missouri River to Chicago. 



Mr. Delano: I wish I could. There is no living man can 

 tell for certain how much he gets for hauling anything from 

 anywhere else. If you can tell me how much it costs to haul a 

 passenger from Chicago to Omaha, I will answer the other 

 question. If we have one hundred and fifty passengers in 

 that train, does it cost us any more to get one hundred and fifty- 

 one? 



The whole question is a very difficult one and one of averages. 

 Personally, I do not think there is as much net money in the 

 high class business, so-called packing house products, meat or 

 live stock, even, as there is in our low class business. Why? 

 It is because we have to give such a different quality of service 

 in the case of hig^h class business from what we do in low class 



