74 
Simons—Railroad Pools. 
ingly grants a rebate or special favor to any individual shipper,, 
but that discriminations are extorted from them by the exig¬ 
encies of competition. They point to the fact that great con¬ 
cerns like those mentioned have it in their power to ruin any 
railroad which refuses to grant them favors, and that unless the 
railroads are allowed to act as a unit in the matter of rates and 
transmission of freight these discriminations must be granted . 11 
Hence they hold that the prohibition of pools has tended to pro¬ 
mote trusts . 12 They claim that any organization which it is 
lawful for the railroads to make at the present time will be 
unable to meet and overcome the demands of such great con¬ 
cerns as the Standard Oil and the Dressed Beef Combine. An 
illustration of the weakness of the present railroad combina¬ 
tions under such conditions was exemplified in the recent endeavor 
by the Western Traffic Association to limit the mileage paid on 
private cars. This private-car mileage constitutes one of the 
most dangerous forms of discrimination in vogue at the present 
time . 13 The most pernicious instances of its effects is seen in 
the case of the Tank and Refrigerator Car Companies. 
11 United States Report on Transportation Interests of United States 
and Canada. Testimony of John McNulta, p. 39. Speaking of the 
dressed beef trade he says : “ The four great packing houses, acting in 
concert, control the markets, and with an advantage in rates can abso¬ 
lutely crush out all competition, and by the further fact that the num¬ 
ber of car-loads of dressed beef east from Chicago is greater than the 
number of car-loads of grain shipped by rail from that city to the sea¬ 
board.” 
12 Inter Ocean, December, 1893. Report of the testimony before a Sen¬ 
ate Committee on Interstate Commerce: Mr. Depew said that the 
Interstate Commerce Law had been established to prevent discrimina¬ 
tion, but its effect had been to promote trusts, beyond anything that 
had ever been dreamed of. There were eight roads between New York 
and Chicago, but for all purposes of the public there was but one. If 
an iron-clad rule of equal rates under equal conditions of time were 
established, the New York Central and the Pennsylvania would do eight- 
tenths of the business. The other roads would go into bankruptcy with 
all the attendants of bankruptcy. In this way the law preventing pool¬ 
ing was creating trusts. If this law continued in force five years longer 
Mr. Depew thought there would not be an independent business man in 
any of the large cities of the United States.” 
13 Judge Schoonmaker, in a paper read before the Third Annual Con- 
