“Senator Clapp. And the opportunity is such that it cannot be detected and prevented?

“Mr. Hill. It is so easy, if there is a great demand for coal in one direction, or for some commodity in one place, for him to help one fellow and forget the other.”[[353]]

One of the gravest dangers lies in the fact that men who are largely interested in the great industrial corporations control certain railway lines and have large influence with many others. The interlocking of railroad interests with other industrial interests is a cause of discrimination second only to the pressure of railroad competition for traffic that is used by shippers as a means of extorting the favors they desire.

A railroad executive writing in The Outlook for July 1, 1905 says: “Notwithstanding the violations of the Interstate Commerce Law have been open and notorious, and indictments have been numerous and prosecutions not infrequent, no railroad officer has ever been incarcerated. For my own part, the penal liability for such disobedience has never in any wise deterred my purpose to secure my company’s share of tonnage by whatever means competitors employed. I have the reputation of a law-abiding citizen in my home city—am well known—of good personal character. I flatter myself that a jury could not be found which would commit me as a felon because I directed the payment of a rebate to a shipper—a transaction which did not inure to my financial advantage. Could a jury be found that would exact a felon’s punishment for such men as Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, or Mr. Secretary Paul Morton, or Mr. Marvin Hughitt for disobeying a statute in order that the revenues of the company by which he was employed might not be decimated?” He had previously said that the revenues of the railroads have been decimated by hundreds of millions through the granting of discriminations, but he argues that the revenues of any particular railroad that should refuse concessions would be decimated still more largely. The truth of this contention is strongly illustrated by the following incident. Some years ago Judge Taft (now Secretary of War), as receiver for the “Cloverleaf” Railroad from Toledo to St. Louis, appointed Mr. Samuel Hunt of Cincinnati, a well-known and successful railroad manager, and required him to comply strictly with the Interstate Law. In doing this Mr. Hunt was obliged “to disregard many outstanding rebate obligations of his predecessor in the receivership, thereby giving offence to many patrons of the road and their friends, the result of which was a decrease of the gross earnings of the road within twenty months of more than $340,000.” The sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the loss of the good-will of shippers, the harsh criticism of competitors, and broken health were the results of Mr. Hunt’s earnest efforts to obey the law. M. E. Ingalls, President of the Big Four, said a few years ago to a convention of State railroad commissioners: “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.

“The railway official who desires to be honest sees traffic leave his line.

“The result is these men in despair are driven to do just what their opponents are doing. They become lawbreakers themselves.

“No one is going to try and send his competitor to prison. Besides, there is the fear that he himself may have committed transgressions which in turn will be discovered and punishment inflicted upon himself.

“Unless some change is made, the small shippers of the country will be extinguished, and a few men of large capital will control the entire merchandise business. And railways ... will be seized upon by large capitalists and combined into one monstrous company.”

CHAPTER XXXI.
DIFFICULTIES OF ABOLISHING DISCRIMINATION.

It is difficult to enforce the law against discrimination, because of the strong interests that call for it, the secrecy of many of its forms, the reluctance of shippers to make complaints for fear of persecution, and the resistance offered by railway officers to efforts to get at the facts, leaving the country during an investigation, refusing to answer truthfully on the witness stand, burning books and papers that might reveal the facts to courts or other investigating bodies or enable the officers to refresh their memories so as to be able to answer questions.