The Louisville and Nashville charged $3.69 per ton on pig iron from Birmingham, Ala., to Cordele, Ga., 267 miles, and only $1.80 a ton from Birmingham to Macon, 332 miles. On coal the rate was $2.60 to Cordele and $1.60 to Macon. The Commission decided that the rates to Cordele should be no higher than to Macon.[[146]]
La Grange is 71 miles nearer New Orleans than Atlanta, yet the rates to La Grange were made so much higher than to Atlanta that an Atlanta dealer could ship goods from New Orleans through to Atlanta and then back to La Grange as cheaply as the goods could be shipped direct to La Grange.[[147]]
To keep traffic from going to Savannah and make it go to the Northwest or to Pensacola, the Louisville and Nashville made very high rates on shipments to Savannah. On Savannah traffic the Nashville haul was short and the receipts small; on shipments to the Northwest the Nashville receipts were much larger, and in Pensacola it had a special interest. So the Savannah cotton rate was advanced from $2.75 to $3.30 a bale, and the rates on naval stores were also made much higher than to Pensacola or to the Northwest.[[148]] The Commission ordered the railroad to discontinue the discrimination against Savannah, January, 1900, and the Circuit Court sustained the decision, July, 1902.
The Commission has condemned the rates from New Orleans to Danville, Va., as excessive in comparison with the rates on the longer haul to Lynchburg;[[149]] also the rates on sugar and molasses from New Orleans to Nashville as higher than on the long haul to Louisville;[[150]] the rates from New York, Cincinnati, Chattanooga, Nashville, and New Orleans, as discriminating against Dawson and in favor of Americus, Eufaula, and Albany;[[151]] undue preference to Sioux City against Sioux Falls, in the rates from Chicago and Duluth;[[152]] and many other discriminations between localities, and violations of the long and short haul clause;[[153]] yet all the complaints and decisions, numerous as they have been, are but a cupful from the sea; and the evils removed in pursuance of orders of the Commission which the Courts neglected to overrule form an insignificant group compared to the mass that remained untouched.
CHAPTER XVI.
TEN YEARS OF FEDERAL REGULATION.
In “A Decade of Federal Railway Regulation,” after describing various forms of discrimination, H. T. Newcomb says: “The conditions described are fairly typical of those existing all over the United States. The Interstate Commerce Law has mitigated but slightly, if at all, the evil of unjust discrimination between individuals, has in but few and relatively insignificant instances moderated unjust discriminations between articles or classes of traffic, and has almost wholly failed to remedy the far more serious inequities in rate-making, which operate to the disadvantage of towns, cities, or districts.”[[154]]
In 1897 the President of the Big Four Railway said: “Never in the history of railways have tariffs been so little respected as to-day. Private arrangements and understandings are more plentiful than regular rates. The larger shippers, the irresponsible shippers, are obtaining advantages which must sooner or later prove the ruin of smaller and more conservative traders, and in the end will break up many of the commercial houses in this country and ruin the railways. A madness seems to have seized upon some railway managers, and a large portion of the freight of the country is being carried at prices far below cost.... There is a much more dangerous view, and that is the demoralization of the men conducting these numerous enterprises and the want of respect for the law which is being developed by the present situation.... There is less faith to-day between railway managers, with reference to their agreements to maintain tariffs, than was probably ever known on earth in any other business. Men managing large corporations who would trust their opponent with their pocket-book with untold thousands in it, will hardly trust his agreement for the maintenance of tariffs while they are in the room together. Good faith seems to have departed from the railway world, so far as traffic agreements are concerned.”[[155]]
The Texas Railway Commission in 1897 started suits against several railways for discriminations, and before the end of the year three railways pleaded guilty in 95 cases and paid fines amounting to $47,500, promising to “be good.” The next year $20,000 more were paid by the railways as fines in 20 cases for violation of this law in Texas. Many other cases pending.[[156]] In the 1898 Report the Commission says that express and railway agents do a business as shippers of fruit, etc., and discriminate against the business of other shippers by underbilling their own shipments and by delaying the other shipments.
One of the most striking illustrations of the effectiveness of the Interstate Act is to be found in the results of the Boston and Albany investigation in 1900, during the consideration of the question of leasing the road to the New York Central. The Interstate Act made it a misdemeanor to depart from the published rates, but the railroad followed the law only when it was convenient to do so, and most of the rates in actual use constituted misdemeanors.
“Various shippers, merchants, manufacturers, etc., were visited, and it was found that the local rates were not followed, that shippers were receiving widely varying discounts from the published rates, and that shippers did not know at all what rates their competitors and neighbors were getting. They were not satisfied with the system, but they were afraid to complain, for if they made complaint they would lose whatever advantages they possess and become marked men for railway persecution. The Railroad Commission of Massachusetts advertised for shippers who were not satisfied to come and make complaint; but they did not do so, for the reason that any shipper who complained of a railroad would be apt to fare a good deal worse afterwards than before; his goods would be delayed, his facilities would be cut off and whatever reductions he was getting would be stopped, and he would have to pay the full published rates. He might also be involved in costly litigation, and he did not dare to say anything.