FEDERAL RAILWAY REGULATION. 815 



can not be so dealt with until the law is modified in a manner 

 more radical than any yet officially suggested. 



The most serious class of unjust discriminations includes those 

 which have for their victims the entire populations of towns, 

 cities, and even extensive districts which are made to suffer from 

 the unfair adjustment of railway rates. Practically the whole 

 region south of the Potomac and Ohio and east of the Mississippi 

 has continuously suffered from discriminations of this kind 

 through the system of making charges to a few selected cities the 

 basis for through rates to all other points. Through rates are 

 made to and from about two hundred of the larger towns, includ- 

 ing Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Vicksburg, New Orleans, 

 and Mobile, and traffic shipped from or to all other points is 

 charged the rate to one of these basing points plus the local rate 

 from such basing point to final destination. In practice it is 

 common to make the combination by the use of rates to and be- 

 yond whatever basing point will give the lowest total, whether 

 on the line traversed by the shipment or not. Thus a shipment 

 from Cincinnati to a point on the line from that city to New Or- 

 leans may be charged the full rate to New Orleans plus that from 

 the latter back to the local point. The condemnation of such a 

 system can not be too severe. It not only limits the commercial 

 activities of the towns unjustly discriminated against and re- 

 stricts the sources from which they can directly draw supplies, 

 but by hindering their growth it retards the development of the 

 entire section, including the cities supposed to be favored. 



The manner in which competition at points served by two or 

 more railways affects those having but one has received general 

 recognition, and is one of the most powerful causes of the too 

 rapid construction that has burdened the country with many un- 

 necessary, unprofitable, and bankrupt lines. To attempt to regu- 

 late these cases by the process of taking them up singly and 

 prescribing the alterations necessary to make the charges rela- 

 tively reasonable, is a task impossible on account of magnitude. 

 Though the relief afforded to particular places through the or- 

 ders of the Interstate Commerce Commission has often been of 

 great local importance, a large number of its decrees, including 

 those most important, have been entirely ignored, or are now 

 awaiting enforcement through the tedious processes of the courts. 

 Even had the commission itself the authority of a United States 

 court, and were there no appeal from its decisions, the town with 

 two railways would still have an immense advantage over that 

 with one. 



In the case of the Eau Claire Board of Trade, decided by the 

 Commission in 1892, it was contended that the rates charged on 

 lumber from Eau Claire to points on the Missouri River were so 



