A. I pretend to say that the railroad officials in western Pennsylvania, on the part of the Pennsylvania railroad, are tyrants, and serfs in Russia have better lives to lead than employés on the Pennsylvania railroad. There is no serfdom in Russia—if the reporter will make that correction. Slavery has been abolished in America, and has been abolished in Russia, but there is a modified form of it on the Pennsylvania——
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. What do you mean when you say that the "hated company discriminates against the interests of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania?"
A. Do you want me to talk on that subject? I can talk for five hours. I say they have systematically discriminated against Pittsburgh, and they have ruined it—that is what they have done. They will carry freight from Pittsburgh—they have systematically discriminated against Pittsburgh to the extent of twenty-five per cent., and when Colonel Scott was here, he said he was horrified. He had not dreamed there was such discrimination. He could not believe it possible; and James Parke, junior, who was one of our most eminent citizens, a Christian gentleman, too, he said it was true. Why, said he, I could not believe it possible. We know it's possible—we know it has ruined Pennsylvania; and the only thing that is going to help us is a competing road, and that, thank God, we will have in the course of three or four months.
Q. Let me ask you, what do you mean by discriminating?
A. it means that they will carry freight from Chicago to Philadelphia cheaper than they will carry from Chicago to Pittsburgh; that they will carry cheaper from Chicago to Albany than they will carry it to Pittsburgh; that Pittsburgh merchants can take goods to Boston, and take them to San Francisco a great deal cheaper—paying the freight to Boston and back—a great deal cheaper than they can ship them direct to San Francisco. There were three thousand tons shipped by Wilson, Walker & Co., to Boston, and from Boston to San Francisco, paying the freight to Boston and back. That is what made trouble in this community. They have been systematically oppressing Pittsburgh. There is no manufacturer unless he has got drawbacks and rebates.
By Mr. Means:
Q. This trouble might just as well have fallen on some other portion of the State as it did on Pittsburgh, would it not?
Q. It could have, and I think would, had we not anticipated the whole trouble here. There was not a community in the State of Pennsylvania, which would have sympathized to the extent that we did. I will answer why: we would have sympathized because we have been systematically oppressed for the last fifteen years. We have been practically ruined.
Q. This thing was as likely to occur at Harrisburg or Scranton or Reading, as it was at Pittsburgh, but, unfortunately, Pittsburgh was the place.