FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 43 



Another party asks why it is that we make lower rates for 

 parties or people going on certain days of the week, or for 

 home seekers' excursions. Can it be that I will have to explain 

 that we can afford to do on a wholesale basis something we 

 can not afford on a retail basis? Can it be that in the cities and 

 towns you live in, that you have not noticed that during holi- 

 days and other times you have noticed the sales marked 

 down? That is what these low rate excursions are — in order to 

 attract people who will not otherwise go. If you can get up a 

 particular hurrah boys excursion, then they will go. It is not 

 that the rate of one fare plus two dollars is remunerative. If we 

 can get enough people to go on certain trains it is remunerative. 

 We have to draw the line somewhere, and the ordinary line at 

 which we draw it is at 100; we just thought 100 was about a fair 

 number; that is the way a great many managers figure. This 

 particular man, the gentleman referred to, he gave a rate of one 

 and one-third for twenty-five. 



Mr. Wallace: In answer to Mr. Delano's remarks in regard 

 to special sales, I would say, these excursions they are getting 

 up at one fare plus two dollars, are not special sales. It is gen- 

 erally something that is about to go out of season; it is some- 

 thing that is about to go out of date. It is something that is on 

 the shelf we want to get rid of and convert into money ; that is 

 absolutely at a discount; they are in a hurry to run off. It is 

 not so on these Tuesday excursions. 



There is another thing I wanted to call attention to. You 

 know, every man in this audience, that throughout the breadth 

 of Iowa, at every station, we have from one to three elevators. 

 These elevators in many instances are owned by what is called 

 Line Companies, and in a great many instances the people 

 managing these elevators have become non graciatothe people. 

 The people organize themselves together and form a farmers' 

 elevator company; they wish to build an elevator there to han- 

 dle the grain, so that they can do their own business, and why 

 is it, that in every instance where the farmers want to build an 

 elevator at one of these stations in Iowa, it universally has to be 

 carried to the Railroad Commissioners in order to get a site? I 

 would like to have that explained. 



The President: I will say in answer to the gentleman, that 

 he can get all the elevators he wants if he will move down on 

 the Burlington route. 



