Distribution of Freight. 
73 
But the fact remains that all of these combinations have 
flourished with equal rapidity, and new ones of almost equal 
magnitude have arisen since the abolition of pooling. This 
fact causes one to ask what would have been the result had 
pooling not been in force at the time when these great combina¬ 
tions were forming ? It is well recognized that natural causes 
aided greatly in making the three concerns just named power¬ 
ful monopolies. These causes had given the concerns under con¬ 
sideration a practical control of the market before the pooling 
policy was inaugurated to any great extent. The question a 
once arises as to whether these great firms could not have 
obtained much greater concessions from a number of warring 
railroads than from a strong pool. This is what is claimed by 
the railroad men of the country. They say that no railroad will- 
or, in other words, it agrees to secure to each road the proportion of the 
traffic agreed upon among themselves in condition of certain special 
advantages accorded over all other shippers in the matter of rates.” 
An editorial in the Railroad Gazette, November 1st, 1878, says : “The 
terms of the contract with the Standard Oil Company have, we believe, 
never been published. Its chief features are understood to be that the 
oil company guarantees to divide the whole oil traffic — not its own busi¬ 
ness simply, but the whole business — in whatever proportions the con¬ 
tracting railroads may direct, in return for which it is guaranteed a large 
rebate ... on all shipments of crude oil to refineries, on the ship¬ 
ments of third parties as well as its own. Substantially the whole 
production of petroleum is to pay the Standard Oil Company 50 cents 
a barrel for affecting the distribution of business among the carriers, or 
for doing the work of a pool. . . . 
“ This plan is identical in principle with the plan by which the live¬ 
stock traffic east of Chicago has been distributed most of the time for 
three years or more. That is, the railroad companies having agreed to 
divide the traffic in certain proportions, engage leading shippers to bring 
about the distribution for them and to pay them for this service by 
giving them an allowance on all the freight shipped.” He concludes his 
article, however, as follows : “ Imagine its (the Standard’s) power if, in 
the absence of any control for the distribution of this freight, it had 
been free to send it by whatever route it pleased from day to day ; how 
it could offer the whole traffic to one if it could make greater reductions 
on rates ; how it could punish any combination to maintain rates alike to 
all shippers by similar action — a not uncommon policy on the part of 
shippers who do not command a tithe of the traffic.” 
