WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 



cheating the bona fide shareholders, robbing the people who 

 are forced to patronize the road, and outraging every in 

 stinct of common decency and justice that should govern 

 business transactions between man and man. 



WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 



It must not be supposed, however, that while these great 

 railroad magnates are thus making money the lesser ones 

 are working hard for nothing. There are &quot; Blue Lines/ 

 &quot;White Lines,&quot; &quot;Star Lines,&quot; &quot;Fast Freights,&quot; &quot;Dispatch 

 Companies,&quot; and the like, to whom franchises have been 

 granted by virtue of which their cars have the precedence 

 in point of speed and time. The shipper wants cars; the 

 railroad company has none, but the dispatch company has. 

 The freight must go, and go it does at the advanced rates 

 charged by the dispatch company. Here is a wheel within 

 a wheel another Credit Mobilier. Certain managers, stock 

 holders, and outside parties constitute the dispatch company. 

 If they sacrifice the interests of the road, they console them 

 selves with the reflection that the stock dividends must not 

 be too large, else the people at large will grumble ; dividends 

 must be kept down to a normal figure. The people think 

 it a pity that the railroad company can not provide cars. 

 The members of the ring know it does not want to do so. 

 They propose to enrich themselves, while that other few are 

 doing the same thing by the manipulation of stocks, the 

 people being made to pay for all. Farmers may grumble, 

 shippers protest, merchants threaten ; they swing the scythe, 

 and prepare to cut into the tallest grass they can find 

 they make hay while the sun shines. 



In the summer of 1873, there was a conflict between the 

 Pullman Palace Car Company and certain railroad compa- 

 21 



