A rate of 90 cents a ton is charged on coal for a special use such as railroad supply, while the same coal must pay $1.85 between the same points if intended for manufacturing or other industrial domestic use.[[222]]
It is unjust discrimination to charge more for carrying cattle and hogs than for carrying packing-house products, and the desire of the carrier to get more business by so doing is no excuse.[[223]]
The railroads have carried dressed meats from Omaha to Chicago at 18½ cents, while charging 23½ cents on live-stock from Iowa points nearer Chicago. The packer could buy the cattle at Fort Dodge, Iowa, ship them to Omaha, kill them and ship the dressed carcasses to Chicago, cheaper than the live-stock owner at Fort Dodge could ship the cattle to Chicago. Some years ago on arbitration, Mr. Fink and Judge Cooley being the arbitrators, it was decided that the fair ratio between live-stock and dressed meats from Chicago to New York would be 26 cents per hundred for live cattle, and 45 cents for the dressed carcass. But the railroads have reversed this relation, although the Interstate Commerce Commission has decided that the rate on dressed meats should be higher than on live-stock.[[224]]
Recently, January 1905,[[225]] the Commission has reaffirmed its decision of 1890 and held that it is unlawful to charge more for transporting live-stock from Missouri River points and St. Paul to Chicago than for carrying packing-house products between the same points, but the Beef Trust cares nothing for the opinions of Judge Cooley nor for the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Trust controls the railroads.
On shipments from Chicago east to New York the rates are 28 cents per hundred and 45 cents on dressed beef. Formerly the same rule applied in the West, but when the Beef Trust began to build up great packing-houses at Omaha, Kansas City, and St. Paul, they wanted to make the rates on cattle from the West to Chicago higher than the rates on beef, so as to force live-stock to come to their stockyards on the Missouri River where they had a practically absolute monopoly, and the railroads obeyed their behest. Shippers fought the change, and in 1890 the Interstate Commission ordered the railroads to desist from charging more for live-stock products than for packing-house products. The railroads did not dare to raise Armour’s rate on dressed beef, so they reduced the live-stock rate to 23½ cents, the same as the rate for dressed meats. Armour then demanded and received a rebate of 5 to 8 cents a hundred lbs. on packing-house products. The rebate was secret at first, but after the Elkins Bill was passed the beef men made a contract with the Great Western road at the rate of 18½ cents and the rate was published. The cattle rate remained at 23½ cents so that Armour and his railroad allies were again in open defiance of the orders of the United States Government issued through its Interstate Commerce Commission. The new decision of the Commission, January, 1905, requiring the railroads to charge more for live-stock than for live-stock products has not been obeyed and is not likely to be.[[226]]
“Could anything more clearly show the power of the Trust,” says Mr. Baker, “than this reversal of the order of rate-making as manifested in the tariffs east of Chicago, so that beef, the high-priced product, is shipped at 18½ cents, while cattle, the low-priced product, is shipped at 23½ cents, simply to enable the Trust to close the Chicago market—the best market in the country for export cattle—to thousands of western cattle growers? They cannot afford to ship live-stock to Chicago at 23½ cents when the Trust can ship the products of the same cattle, weighing only 60 or 70 percent as much as the live animal, at 18½ cents. They are therefore compelled to ship to Missouri River points where the Beef Trust is in absolute control.”
A rate of $1.25 per hundred lbs. on oranges from California to points on and east of the Missouri River, while lemons are carried for $1 to the same points—is held unreasonable.[[227]] A higher charge on rye and barley than on wheat is unjust.[[228]]
Western millers complain that the discrimination between flour and wheat on shipments to the East is causing them much injury and will put them out of business. The Commission decided that the difference should not exceed 2 cents a hundred, but it has no power to enforce its order and “frequently for considerable periods there is very great discrimination between the rates on flour and the rates on wheat.”[[229]]
Railroads can discriminate against a whole industry by advancing rates on particular commodities above the fair level, as illustrated in the recent advances on hay and lumber.[[230]]