HOW CONGRESS MAY CONTROL TRUSTS 225 



get their start by special rates to individual customers and by 

 making leaders of individual articles, to compel them to sell 

 to all customers at the same rate is against free competition, 

 as the word is ordinarily used. Will the limitation of free 

 action harm most the trust or its rival? 



A small flouring mill in southern New York sells flour, 

 let us say, in its own town, in Owego and Elmira, N. Y., in 

 Wilkesbarre and Scranton, Pa., and in Phillipsburg and 

 Dover, N. J. It is engaged in interstate commerce. It must 

 sell in face of the competition of the great Minneapolis mills 

 and of the so-called flour trust. Freight rates from Minne- 

 apolis are substantially the same to all these points; in them 

 all flour of the same brand sells at practically the same price. 

 The local New York miller must meet these prices, freights 

 included. In consequence, as his freights differ, he sells to 

 each town at a different rate. His profits from each differ. 

 He does not sell to all at the same rate and then add the 

 freight, as does his great rival. If the law of no discrimina- 

 tion is enforced on him in the same way as on the trust — and 

 the law cannot be a respecter of persons — he is confined to 

 his local New York market, cannot sell enough to keep his 

 mill running, and stops. The act indicated, rigidly enforced, 

 would close hundreds of small mills in all sections of the coun- 

 try, and would stop thousands of men in other lines. Yet 

 possibly this may be a less evil than discriminations of the 

 trusts. We must, however, not blink the fact that in many 

 individual cases such a law may strengthen instead of weaken 

 the trust. It would be a practical impossibility for any exec- 

 utive body to grant exceptions in special cases. The ship- 

 pers are altogether too numerous. It is also true that a law 

 forbidding discriminations, as well as one requiring publicity, 

 can be easily evaded. It is impossible in many cases to get 

 evidence. But direct methods of evasion are also even now 

 employed. 



It is proposed to make these laws apply only to interstate 

 commerce. A manufacturing corporation as such, however 

 large, is not engaged in interstate commerce. It is at times, 

 even now, the custom for a great manufacturing corporation, 

 in vSTs? t0 evade a state law against combinations, to sell its 



