And State Papers 279 



below the tariff charges imposed upon the smaller 

 dealers and the general public. These unjust prac 

 tices had prevailed to such an extent and for so long 

 a time that many of the smaller shippers had been 

 driven out of business, until practically one buyer of 

 grain on each railway system had been able by his 

 illegal advantages to secure a monopoly on the line 

 with which his secret compact was made; this mo 

 nopoly enabling him to fix the price to both pro 

 ducer and consumer. Many of the great packing 

 house concerns were shown to be in combination with 

 each other and with most of the great railway lines, 

 whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in 

 rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of the 

 fresh and cured meat industry of the country. These 

 fusions, though violative of the statute, had pre 

 vailed unchecked for so many years that they had 

 become intrenched in and interwoven with the com 

 mercial life of certain large distributing localities; 

 although this was of course at the expense of the 

 vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general pub 

 lic, and particularly of unfavored localities. 



Under those circumstances it was a serious prob 

 lem to determine the wise course to follow in vital 

 izing a law which had in part become obsolete or 

 proved incapable of enforcement. Of what the At 

 torney-General did in enforcing it I shall speak later. 

 The decisions of the courts upon the law had be 

 trayed weaknesses and imperfections, some of them 

 so serious as to render abortive efforts to apply any 

 effective remedy for the existing evils. 



