EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III, 155 



two volumes there are rates on from one to eight different com- 

 modities, between over a thousand towns in Texas and neighboring 

 states, and several thousand towns elsewhere in the country. In 

 other words, we have in these two books several million rates. They 

 have been agreed to by over two hundred railroads ; they are issued 

 under the supervision of one man, Mr. Geo. W. Cahill, of St. Louis, 

 Mo. Millions of rates on two hundred railroads under the general 

 supervision of one man. I give you this as a simple illustration of 

 the enormous organization which the roads in the southwest have 

 effected. They are organized, and you are not. Each railroad has 

 employes and counsel in every county and state which it traverses ; 

 each railroad has representatives on committees, rate experts and 

 rate clerks by the hundred ; they have freight traffic managers, gen- 

 eral freight agents, etc., etc. — vast complicated machines, working 

 in perfect unison, put together and operated by master hands at 

 organization. The railroad interests to-day are protected by the 

 keenest brains that money can hire. How are you protecting your 

 interests? Did you ever investigate whether the charges you are 

 paying are reasonable or not? When you go to buy a horse or sell 

 a farm, you will stand and dicker and quibble by the hour, and you 

 have been kno\^Ti to waste considerable time and nervous energy 

 with the assessor, but when it comes to the paying of a billion dol- 

 lars or so every year in freight rates, you, in connection with the 

 majority of other shippers, sit around like bumps on a log and let 

 the other fellow charge whatever he wants to. Why? Simply 

 because, what is everybody's business is nobody's business. 



Do not blame the railroads for protecting their interests. The 

 railroad officials who fails to look after the interests entrusted to 

 him, should get his walking papers. All I desire to say to you is, 

 that we are a bunch of big fools if we do not protect our interests. 



You should have rate experts just as competent and well equipped 

 as the railroads have. There should be a transportation bureau 

 supported by the state and responsible to the state for its work. 

 These bureaus should make constant investigations; they should 

 make annual reports, giving information of practical and concrete 

 value to the shipping, manufacturing and producing interests of 

 your state. They should give us comparisons of rates and condi- 

 tions constantly. The Federal Government should have similar 

 bureaus. The exposures of the past few years merely serve as eye- 

 openers, and the lesson that we should learn is, that we must pro- 

 vide ourselves with the facilities that will prevent the recurrence 

 'of these evils. Unless you take definite steps with this object in 

 view, you will witness the same course of events which followed the 



