64 SHOULD THE NATION OWN THE RAILWAYS? 



riching officials and their partners although it may be necessary to be more careful in 

 covering up tracks. That they are continued is within the cognizance of every well in. 

 formed shipper and are made clear by such cases as that of Counselmau and Peasley now 

 before the United States Supreme Court. Conselman and Peasley — one a large shipper 

 and the other a prominent railway official — refused to testify before a United States grand 

 Jury upon the plea that to do so might criminate themselves; the federal law making it a 

 criminal offense to make or benertt by discriminating rates. Oounselman had been given 

 rates on corn some five cents less per 100 pounds than others from Kansas and Nebraska 

 points to Chicago. 



The outrageous character of this discrimination will appear when we reflect that 

 five cents per 100 pounds is an enormous profit on corn that the grower has sold at from 

 18 to 20 cents per 100 pounds and that such a margin would tend to drive every one but 

 the railway officials and their secret partners out of the trade, as has practically been the 

 case on many western roads. Doubtless such rates are sometimes made in order to take 

 the commodity overa certain line, and there is no divide with the officials; but the eflect 

 upon the com])etitors of the favored shipper and the public is none the less injurious and 

 such practices would not obtain under uatioual ownership, when railway users would be 

 treated with honesty and impartiality which the experience of half a century shows to 

 be impossible with corporate ownership. 



Referring to the rate question in their last report the Interstate Commerce Com- 

 mission says: "If we go no farther than the railroad managers themselves for informa- 

 tion, we shall not find that it is claimed that railroad service, as a whole, is conducted 

 without unjust discrimination." 



" If rates are secretly out, or if rebates are given to large shippers, the fact of itself 

 shows the rates which are charged to the general public are unreasonable, for they are 

 necessarily made higher than they ought to be in order to provide for the cut or to pay 

 the rebate." 



' ' If the carrier habitually carries a great number of people free, its regular rates are 

 made the higher to cover the cost; ifheavy commissions are paid forobtaiuingbusiness, the 

 rates are made the higher that the net revenues may not suffer in consequenee ; if scalpers 

 are directly or Indirectly supported by the railroad companies, the general public refunds 

 to the companies what the support costs." 



The commission quote a Chicago railway manager as saying : " Rates are absolutely 

 demoralized and neither shippers, passengers, railways, or the public in general' make any" 

 thing by this state of affairs. Take passenger rates for instance ; they are very low ; but 

 who benefits by the reduction? No one but the scalpers. * * * * In freight matters 

 the case is just the same. Certain shippers are alloweed heavy rebates, while others are 

 made to pay full rates. * * * * The management is dishonest on all sides, and there 

 is not a road in the country that can be accused of living up to the interstate law. Of 

 course when some poor devil comes along and wants a pass to save him from starvation 

 he has several clauses of the interstate act read to him; but when a rich shipper wants a 

 pass, why he gets it at once." 



From years of iueflectual efforts, on the part of state and national legislatures and 

 commissions, to regulate the rate business it would appear that the onlj' remedy is na- 

 tional ownership, which would place the rate making power in one body, with no induce, 

 ment to act otherwise than fairly and impartially, and this would simplify the whole 

 business and relegate an army of traffic managers, general freight agents, soliciting 

 agents, brokers, scalpers, and hordes of traffic association officials to more useful callings 

 while relieving the honest user of the railway of intolerable burthens. 



Under corporate control, railways and their officials have taken possession of the 

 majority of the mines which furnish the fuel so necessary to domestic and industrial life, 

 and there are but few coal fields where they do not fix the price at which so essential an 

 article shall be sold, and the whole nation is thus forced to pay undue tribute. 



Controlling rates and the distribution of cars, railway ofBcials have driven nearly 

 all the mine owners to the wall who have not railways or railway officials for partners. 

 Per instance; in Eastern Kansas, on the line of the "St. Louis & San Francisco Railway 



