The fault lay with the Railroad Company’s tariff bureau, which failed to properly publish the tariff, which should have shown that the published rate of $4.05 per ton included the price of the coal ($1.15 per ton). There was no discrimination in favor of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; in fact, discrimination was impossible, because there was no other shipper of coal in that territory.
(Signed) Paul Morton.
There were, however, other mining companies in adjacent territory, along the line of the Santa Fe in New Mexico, and at Gallup there were competitors in the same field. The same day that the Commission began to investigate the Colorado Case complaint was made about the rates from San Antonio, N. M. San Antonio lies 150 miles north of El Paso on the Santa Fe line from Trinidad, which is 500 miles from El Paso. The rate paid by the Fuel Company from Trinidad was $2.90 and the rate from San Antonio had been $1.25. “Under this adjustment of rates a coal operator at Carthage whose product reached the iron of the Santa Fe at San Antonio had been able to compete with the Colorado fields, and had entered into a contract for furnishing the Mexican Central Railway Company with its fuel. While that contract was pending the Santa Fe advanced the freight rate from San Antonio to El Paso from $1.25 to $1.50. By this action the operator at San Antonio was forced to give up his contract and go out of business.”[[196]]
It seems clear that even our best railroads, while unwilling to countenance graft and desiring to avoid all criminal practices, see nothing immoral in granting whatever favors or imposing whatever disadvantages may be deemed necessary to forward the financial interests of the road.
The Santa Fe is by no means the only railroad that has been kicking over the traces since the Elkins Bill was passed. Mr. Hendrickson, Secretary of the Associated Merchants of Cumberland, Maryland, told the Senate Committee that he came “to complain of coal discriminations. We are charged 15 cents more a ton to tide water for our coal than is charged other mines in more distant regions (50 to 75 miles further from market on the same road), and we have a large amount of bituminous coal that cannot be developed at the 15 cents differential.”
“Senator Dolliver. Why do they make this differential against you?
“Mr. Hendrickson. I can only state that the Baltimore and Ohio officials, when they were petitioned, said that other districts have poorer coal than ours, a compliment we did not appreciate under these circumstances; and they object to letting our coal reach market as cheaply as these districts which they claim have poorer coal. Nevertheless, it shuts our region out entirely. It is practically a confiscation of our coal values, not our coal, but coal values, and that amounts practically to the same thing.”[[197]]
The B. & O. made certain charges when coal was loaded by tipple and exacted more if it was loaded in any other way. This is an unreasonable discrimination against all who do not load by tipple.[[198]] The Pere Marquette Railway has been selling ice to the Armour Car-Line at $2 a ton while charging other shippers $8 to $12 per ton.[[199]]
The absorption of switching charges in some cases and not in others constitutes an easy method of discrimination. For example, at Cincinnati there is a large buyer of lumber whose yard is on what is called “Hazen’s Switch.” To get to this switch from the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, cars must go over part of the tracks of the P. C. C. and St. Louis Railway and the Cinn. L. & N. Railway. These roads charge the Louisville and Nashville $6.50 to $9 a car for switching. On lumber originating at some points the shipper has to pay these switching charges in addition to the freight; while on lumber from other points the Louisville railroad pays the switching charges and the shipper is favored to that extent.[[200]]