168 THE FARMER AS A BUSINESS MAN. 



state.* The difficulty has been to get the facts. The United 

 States Interstate Commerce Commission, which was organized 

 in 1887, attacked this problem with great vigor, and within two 

 years was able to report that, in the opinion of the commission, 

 this abuse, as to interstate commerce, had ceased. At that time 

 the commission and the railroad companies supposed that the 

 powers given to the commission by the act were ample to dis- 

 cover the facts and enforce its authority. This being the case, 

 the practice probably did stop. Subsequently successive dis- 

 cussions of the Supreme Court took away from the commis- 

 sion most of its power, and as a consequence law-breakers have 

 ceased to fear it. All railroad companies resolutely den}' that 

 discrimination between individuals now exists, but nobody 

 believes them. Some high railroad officials have unquestion- 

 ably committed perjury in swearing that they "did not remem- 

 ber" as to matters which they doubtless did remember per- 

 fectly. Such perjury can not be prov.en, and therefore can not 

 be punished. Indirect methods of giving individuals prefer- 

 ences have been devised. A rich concern may own its private 

 cars, for whose use, over its lines, the railroad company may 

 pay an exorbitant rental. This is not possible to the poorer 

 rival. "Refrigerator car" companies are capable of being, and 

 are, made use of as means of discrimination between large and 

 small shippers. Wliat are known as "terminal" or "switching" 

 charges are remitted or rebated to large sliippers. Finally, 

 actual cash rebates, usually in the form of "commissions," are 

 doubtless paid to large sliippers in some cases. Tlie actual 

 rates paid by individuals are tlie same. In some form, liow- 

 ever, the stronger get some of it back, and the richer the 

 concern the more it gets. Of these statements probably not a 

 single one could be proven in any court. But tliey are true. 

 Discriminations between localities can not, in the nature 

 of things, be secret. They are always earnestly defended by 

 the favored localities, and bitterly attacked by communities 

 injured. They are as unjust and unlawful as discriminations 



* I assume that all understand that Congress has exclusive jurisdiction of 

 all traflSc passing from one state to another, and that states have exclusive juris- 

 diction of traffic wholly within their own boundaries. 



