“Mr. Hill. Yes—well, $3 would be the extreme figure. We will say $2.50.” (Sen. Com. 1905, p. 1505.)
[271]. A refrigerator car costs $900 to $1000, as a rule. A first-class steel-framed freight car costs about the same. Private stock cars of good build cost about $800 each. (See evidence in Hearings on Private Cars, I. C. C. April, 1904, pp. 19, 100; I. C. C. Rep. 1904, p. 14.) The contracts provide that the railroads are to carry no perishable goods except in Trust cars if the Trust cares to furnish the cars. If by chance the railroads use their own or any other refrigerator cars than those of the Trust they are to charge the full Trust rates and turn over the said charges to the car-line just as if its cars had been used.
[272]. Sen. Com. 1905, p. 776: 49,807 total, 15,269 railroad and 34,538 private refrigerators; 14,792 tank cars; 11,357 stock cars; 325 poultry cars; vehicle cars and furniture cars, 1,621. These with coal and coke cars and other private cars make a total of 127,331 private cars. The entire freight car equipment belonging to the railroads is about 1,700,000 cars.
[273]. The Beef Trust is one of the largest shippers in the world. Its packing-house shipments from Chicago are said to amount to some three thousand million pounds (3,000,000,000 lbs.) a year. Its shipments from Kansas City, Omaha, St. Joe, St. Louis, etc., are also enormous. There is also a vast traffic in poultry, eggs, dairy products, fruit, and vegetables, that is controlled by the Trust. Is it any wonder that a railroad president or manager should refrain from action that might lose him his share of this huge business? It would make a sad hole in his receipts. Dividends would be emaciated and might vanish or appear with a minus sign. His stock would sink in Wall Street. Angry directors, bankers, investors, and stockholders would assail him and attack his management. And as a result of defying the Trust he would put himself out of office and his road perhaps in the hands of a receiver.
[274]. C. B. Hutchins was the inventor of an improved refrigerator car. He built five cars in 1886, and in 1890 he had the California Fruit Transportation Company operating $200,000 worth of cars. In two years, 1890 and 1891, the profits amounted to $250,000 or more than the total investment, and the company thought they had something better than a gold mine. But the Beef Trust undermined them by railroad favoritism and compelled them to sell out to the Swifts.
While the California Fruit Transportation Company was fighting for its life with the Armour lines, it presented the Southern Pacific Railway Company with $100,000 of its stock on condition of receiving an exclusive contract. The contract was made, but the Armour cars continued to go. An influence was at work stronger than the exclusive contract and the power of the California Fruit Transportation Company.
[275]. Evidence, pp. 101, 133, 134, 146, etc. For example the manager of the “Missouri River Despatch” operating 250 refrigerator cars testified that the Erie paid 12½ percent commissions on the freight rates in addition to the mileage. And the manager of the Santa Fe car-line said the B. & O. paid them 12½ percent commissions on dairy products in addition to the ¾ cent mileage, etc. etc.
[276]. Evidence, pp. 54–55, Armour Cars.
[277]. National Congress Railway Commissioners, above cited.
[278]. Ibid.