"Pays the rates that I understand are the rates for everybody."
"Pays what are known as open rates?"
"Open rates; yes, sir."[402]
That the increase of rates in 1886, like that of 1879, was made by the railroads against Rice, under the direction of his trade enemy, is confirmed by the unwilling testimony of the latter's representative before Congress. "I know I have been asked just informally by railroad men once or twice as to what answer they should make. They said, Here is a man—Rice, for instance—writing us that you are getting a lower rate." He was asked if he knew any reason, legal or moral, why the Louisville and Nashville Railroad should select his firm as the sole people in the United States. "No, sir," the witness replied; but then added, recovering himself, "I think they did because we were at the front."[403] The railroads bring the people they prefer "to the front," and then, because they are "at the front," make them the "sole people."
Rice did not sleep under this new assault. He went to the Attorney-General of Ohio, and had those of the railroads which were Ohio corporations brought to judgment before the Supreme Court of Ohio, which revoked their action, and could, if it chose, have forfeited their charters. The Supreme Court found that these railroads had charged "discriminating rates," "strikingly excessive," which "tended to foster a monopoly," "actually excluded these competitors," "giving to the favored shippers absolute control."[404] Rice went to Cincinnati, to Louisville, to St. Louis, and Baltimore to see the officials of the railroads. He found that the roads to the South and West, which took his oil from the road which carried it out of Marietta, were willing to go back to the old rates if the connecting road would do so. But the general freight agent of that company would give him no satisfaction. He wrote, October 3d, to the president of the road over which he had done all his business for years. He got no answer. He wrote again October 11th, no answer; October 20th, no answer; November 14th, no answer. Rice had been paying this road nearly $10,000 a year for freight, sending all his oil over it. The road had used its rate-making power to hand over four-fifths of his business to another, but he has never been able to get so much as a formal acknowledgment of the receipt of his letters to the head of the road, asking that his petitions for restoration of his rights on the highway be considered. A part only of the letters and telegrams which he sent during these years—to get rates, to have his cars moved, to rectify unequal charges, to receive the same facilities and treatment others got—fill pages of close print in the Trust Report of the Congressional Committee of Manufactures of 1888.
"Your time is a good deal occupied with correspondence, is it not?"
"I should say so. If the rates had been more regular, I would not have had so much correspondence. It takes about all my time to look after rates."[405]
Driven off his direct road to market, Rice set to hunting other ways. The Baltimore and Ohio, he found, was, though very roundabout, the only avenue left by which he could get his oils into Southern markets. He began to negotiate with it immediately, but it was not until several months later—the middle of November—that he succeeded in closing arrangements. To get to Chattanooga, Tennessee, over this route his oil had to travel 1186 miles as against 582 miles by the roads which had been closed to him, and yet the rate was lower over the more than double distance. Again, he could send a barrel of oil 1213 miles by the Baltimore and Ohio to Birmingham, Alabama, for $1.22, while the roads he had been using put his rate up to $2.26, although their line to Birmingham was only 685 miles.
All the arrangements had been concluded to the mutual satisfaction of Rice and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After this thorough discussion of four months, in which every point had been examined, Rice sends forward his first shipment December 1st. He is not a little elated to have blazed his way out of the trackless swamp in which he had been left by the other roads. His satisfaction is short enough. In about a fortnight—on December 15th—the then general freight agent of the Baltimore and Ohio telegraphed him that he could not be allowed to ship any more. "We will have to withdraw rates on oil to Southern points, as the various lines in interest"—the connections to which the Baltimore and Ohio delivered the oil for points beyond its own line, and which shared in the rates—"will not carry them out."
This was stunning. It nullified the labor of months which had been spent in opening a way out of this blockade. It put the cup of ruin again to the lips of the family at Marietta, innocent of all offence but that of trying to make a living out of the industry of their choice, and asking no favors, only the right to travel the public highway on equal terms, and to stand in the open markets. The excuse given was heavy-laden with inaccuracy. Rice immediately found out by wire that the Piedmont Air Line, one of the most important of the connections, had not refused to carry at the agreed rate. Its traffic manager telegraphed the Baltimore and Ohio people to reconsider their action, and continue taking Rice's oil. When asked first by Rice, and afterwards by Congress, to name the lines which refused, as he alleged, to carry out the rates he had agreed upon, the general freight agent of the Baltimore and Ohio could not give one. He escaped from Congress by promising to send its committee, "within a day or two," all the correspondence with these other companies. Once out of the committee-room, he never sent a scrap of paper to redeem his promise, and the whole matter was lost sight of by the committee.[406]