Packing-house products: Cost per car, $85.03; revenue, $56; deficit, $29.03.
He also asserts that cattle are now hauled at a loss.
Other witnesses have disputed President Ripley’s statement of cost, but however this may be it is evident that the Beef Trust has been very generous to itself in the rates it has compelled the railroads to adopt for its shipments.
The railroads do not like to be bossed either by the Beef Trust or the Standard Oil, but they declare that they cannot help themselves. President Ripley says: “The packing-house business to-day is concentrated in so few hands that this fact, together with the competition between the railroads, practically makes it possible for the latter to dictate rates for dressed beef and the packing-house products.”
President Stickney of the Great Western Railroad says: “In fixing the rate on dressed meat we don’t have very much to say. The packer generally makes the rate. He comes to you and asks how much you charge for a certain shipment of dressed meats. The published tariff may be 23 cents a hundred, but he will not pay that. You say to him: ‘I’ll carry your meat for 18 cents.’ He says: ‘Oh, no, you won’t. I won’t pay that.’ Then you say: ‘Well, what will you pay for it?’ He then replies, ‘I can get it hauled for 16 cents.’ So you haul it for 16 cents a hundred.”
President Calloway, speaking to the Interstate Commission about the speeding of the beef cars and other Armour exactions, said:
“We do not do these foolish things from choice. I will say that the thing is just as bad and foolish and stupid as can be, but what are you going to do about it? We have built up these dressed-beef men and they have all got their own cars, and they can dictate what they are going to pay. They just keep these cars humping. We unload them and get them back to Chicago just as quickly as we can. The Pennsylvania people also were very much disinclined to allow or foster this dressed-beef business, but were forced into it.”
Very few railroads have dared to fight either Armour or Rockefeller openly, but secretly the railroads did combine to fight these men and employed an agent, Mr. Midgley of Chicago, for that purpose, whose investigations and disclosures have done much to throw light upon the hidden ways of the Trust magnates.
Mr. Midgley told the Interstate Commission in April, 1904, how the representatives of sixty railroads met in St. Louis in 1894 and tried to stand up against the Trusts, beginning with a reduction of the extortionate mileage rates on tank and refrigerator cars, but they could not free themselves from the yoke of oil and beef. The Standard gave all its shipments to the Great Western, which agreed to pay the old mileage. The other lines out of Chicago could not get a carload to St. Paul or the Missouri River. The railroads surrendered finally to both the Standard Oil and the Beef Trust. They reduced the mileage rates on stock cars, railroad cars, and other cars not controlled by the Trusts to 6 mills per mile, but excepted refrigerator and tank cars out of respect to the power of Armour and Rockefeller, because, the trunk lines said, referring to the power of these Trusts: “We have never been able to stand up against it.”
We have not yet finished with the favors shown to Armour. The railroads as a rule inspect the loading of every car and the unfavored shipper cannot mix eggs or poultry with low-class provisions and bill it all at a low rate. But the Armours can do this, for inspection in their case is a mere form. There is one inspector for shipments that average 75 cars a day. The inspector could not watch them all if he would, and in fact he simply inspects the Armour records and takes their word for the contents of the cars.[[286]]