A COLORADO RAILROAD POOL 
By JOHN BuRTON PHILLIPS 
A railroad’s power over the rates to be maintained in any section of 
territory is determined by its ability to control all the transportation 
facilities existing in that section of the country. In so far as the termin- 
als are common points from which the shipper has the choice of route 
in sending out his consignments, no one railroad alone can long control 
the situation as to the rates to be charged without an agreement with 
the other roads. This is the reason for the existence of railway pools. 
When the locality to be served by the railroads is far removed from the 
eastern parts of the country where there are numerous rail and also 
many water facilities in the matter of transportation, and when the 
remote locality is served by comparatively few railroads and no water 
transportation, the conditions favoring a powerful pool are propitious. 
It is also easier to maintain a railway pool when there is no likelihood 
of its being interfered with by ocean or inland water transportation. 
Therefore, the situation of Colorado, favorable in both these respects — 
to pooling agreements, early made the citizens familiar with these rail- 
road combinations, and placed their prosperity in great degree in the 
control of the men at tlie head of the great transportation systems. 
A railroad pool is commonly thought of as an agreement according 
to which each road binds itself to maintain a certain rate agreed upon 
in the conference. The other matters with which pools concern them- 
selves are not usually thought of as of great importance, nor is the power 
of the pool to control the entire development of a state generally under- 
stood. It is therefore interesting to know the effect of the pool formed 
by the railroads which first entered the state of Colorado—a pool, how- 
ever, which was not formed primarily for the purpose of arranging rates. 
On March 22, 1880, a tripartite agreement was made between the 
three leading railroads of the state of Colorado. They divided up the 
territory alloting certain portions to each of the parties to the contract and 
agreed not to build railroads there nor to take freight or passengers from 
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