“Mr. Wicker. Yes, sir; worse than that. It is individual favoritism, the building up of one party to the detriment of the other. I will illustrate. I have been doing it myself for years and had to do it.
“Senator Harris. Doing it for yourself in your position?
“Mr. Wicker. I am speaking now of when I was a railroad man. Here is quite a grain point in Iowa, where there are 5 or 6 elevators. As a railroad man I would try and hold all these dealers on a “level keel” and give them all the same tariff rate. But suppose there was a road of 5 or 6 or 8 miles across the country, and these dealers should begin to drop in on me every day or two and tell me that the road across the country was reaching within a mile or two of our station and drawing to itself all the grain. You might say that it would be the just and right thing to do to give all the 5 or 6 dealers at this station a special rate to meet that competition through the country. But as a railroad man I can accomplish the purpose better by picking out one good, smart, live man, and giving him a concession of 3 or 4 cents a hundred, let him go there and scoop the business. I would get the tonnage, and that is what I want. But if I give it to the five, it is known in a very short time.... When you take in these people at the station on a private rebate you might as well make it public and lose what you intend to accomplish. You can take hold of one man and build him up at the expense of the others, and the railroad will get the tonnage.
“Senator Harris. The effect is to build the one man up and destroy the others?
“Mr. Wicker. Yes, sir; but it accomplishes the purposes of the road better than to build up the 6.
“Senator Harris. And the road, in seeking its own preservation, has resorted to that method of concentrating the business into the hands of one or a few, to the destruction of the many?
“Mr. Wicker. Yes, sir; and that is a part and parcel of the system.”
On page 189 the committee says:
“The practice prevails so generally that it has come to be understood among business men that the published tariffs are made for the smaller shippers, and those unsophisticated enough to pay the established rates; that those who can control the largest amounts of business will be allowed the lowest rates; that those who, even without this advantage, can get on ‘the inside,’ through the friendship of the officials or by any other means, can at least secure valuable concessions; and that the most advantageous rates are to be obtained only through personal influence or favoritism, or by persistent ‘bulldozing.’
“It is in evidence that this state of affairs is far from satisfactory, even to those specially favored, who can never be certain that their competitors do not, or at any time may not, receive even better terms than themselves. Not a few large shippers who admitted that they were receiving favorable concessions testified that they would gladly surrender the special advantages they enjoyed if only the rates could be made public and alike to all.”