.,) 



44 THE FARMER, THE INVESTOR AND THE RAILWAY. 



either the laws or the commission are ineffecieut; yet enough has been accomplished to 

 show the beiieficeut possibilities of governmental control in suppressing snnie of the 

 multifarious evil practices of railway companies, and while these practices continue they 

 are much less common and not so flagrant as in the past, when the manager of an Inter. 

 State railway, in order to destroy the value of the property of a coal company having no 

 other outlet for its product, could, without a minute's notice, advance the rates on coal 

 shipped by such company 133 per cent, above the rates charged another coal company in 

 which such railway company and its officers were stockholders; nor, with the Inter-State 

 law in force, are railway ofltieials likely to repeat the indiscretion of such manager in 

 writing the president of a coal company (of whose property he desired to force a sale) the 

 subjoined letter: 



St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company, 

 Office of the Second Vice-President and General, Manager, 

 St. Louis, Mo., February 9th, 1882. 

 President PUtaburg Conl Company, Pittsburg, Kansas: 



Dear Sir — I will pass through Pittsburg about 12 o'clock on Monday next, and 

 would be glud to have you join me at Pittsburg, and go to Qirard, and back to Pittsburg. 



If we can buy your coal at a low price, I think we can possibly make a deal on that 

 basis. 



As long as you continue shipping coal, it has a demoralizing effect on the trade, 

 and renders the coal business unprofitable, to a certain extent, to the "Rogers Coal 

 Company," Respectfully, C. W. Rogers, 



Second Vice-Pres't and Oen'l Manager. 



Discriminations and other fraudulent practices, whereby the few are enriched at 

 the expense of the public, doubtless continue, and will until railway managers thus be- 

 traying their trusts are sent to keep company with the men who plundered the Ocean ^ 

 Fidelity and Sixth Avenue banks; but there is, as compared with the time preceding the 

 enactment of Inter-State and State laws, but little of the work of discrimination in pro. 

 gress; and great as is this evil, it is trivial as compared with those growing out of a 

 capitalization excessive by more than one-half, and which is the warrant for annually 

 levying an immense sum in unjust tolls, by which producer and consumer are alike de- 

 spoiled of a large part of their earnings. 



If the courts are right in holding that the carrier is entitled to but a reasonalile 

 compensation, and that the reasonableness of the charge rests upon the cost of mainten- 

 ance, operation and the amount actually Invested in the plant, then the exaction of 

 existing rates of toll is wholly indefensible. Asa bar to the rendering of Justice to the 

 user, the plea is made that should rates be reduced to what would afltbrd but a fair return 

 for the actual cost of the plant, it would work great hardships to the present holders of 

 railway securities, who are assumed to have bought them in good faith, and many of 

 whom are widows, orphans, trustees and institutions In which the poor have deposited 

 their scanty savings. Has this plea against justice any basis except one of sentiment? 

 If sentiment and a charitable regard for the poor and helpless shall govern, are there not 

 twelve times as many widows orphans and poor among the 60,000,000 of railway users? 



From the fact that there are 10,000 holders of New "Vork Central stock, Mr. Poor 

 estimates that there are 1,000,000 investors in railway securities, who, with their depend- 

 ents, constitute a body of 5,000,000, and it is proposed that rather than this one-thirteenth 

 shall surrender, once for all, so much of their power to tax others as is the direct product 

 of fr.aud, they shall continue such unjust taxation. 



This is not simply a proposition that one-thirteenth of the population shall unjustly 

 tax all others this year, next year, or even the third or fourth .year, but that such burden, 

 yearly increasing by the addition of more water, shall becarried by the twelve-thirteenths 

 to their graves; that when death relieves them, their children and children's children for 

 countless generations, shall each in its turn take up the grievous burden and carry it 

 until they also drop into the grave, and so long as these railways exist, this one-thirteenth 

 shall possess the power to thus levy an iniquitous impcst upon the entire industry of the 

 country'. Could anything be more unjust? 



Shall lid, 000, 000 people and their descendants sutler a great aii<i growing wrong 

 rather than that 5,000,000 shall surrender a power to wliich they have no right? 



