IN THE INTEREST OF ALL
The difference in freights against Rice was so great, as the Interstate Commerce Commission found, after taking hundreds of pages of testimony, that he had to pay $600 to $1200, "or more," on the same quantity his opponent got through for $500. These discriminations were made, as the commissioners say, "on no principle.... Neither greater risks, greater expense, competition by water transportation, nor any other fact or circumstance brought forward in defence, nor all combined, can account for these differences."[414]
The railroads had, of course, to give some reason, and they put forward the plea that it was much more expensive and dangerous to carry Rice's shipments, which were in barrels, than those of the combination, which were in tank-cars.[415] This excuse for charging him rates at which he could not ship at all did not stand examination by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
But he did not wait for that. When he found the railroads were so fond of tank-cars, he set about getting them. He wrote the general freight agent and the president of the road that he would build tank-cars, and asked what his rate would be then; but he got no answer. He wrote other roads, but got no answer. He asked the general manager of the Queen City and Crescent Route the same question. After a correspondence of five months with him and other officials, in which he was shuttlecocked from one to another and back again, he had not only not succeeded in getting any tank-car rates, but at the end of that protracted exchange of letters the general manager wrote: "I was not aware that you had asked for rates on oil in tank-cars."[416] Rice wrote the Louisville and Nashville: "I will build immediately twenty tank-cars if you will guarantee me ... as low a net rate as accorded any other shipper." Commenting on his failure to get answers, the commissioners say: "Complainant did not succeed in obtaining rates. The denial of his right was plain, and stands unexcused.... What reason there may have been for it"—the refusal of rates—"we do not know, but find that they were not just or legal reasons."[417]
How history is made! One of the reasons given by the solicitor of the oil trust[418] for its success is its use of the tank-car, with the obvious inference that its would-be competitors had no such enterprise. And Peckham, in his valuable and usually correct "Census Report on Petroleum," in 1885, says that the railroads require shippers to use tank-cars![419]
Determined to keep in the field and to have tank-cars, if tank-cars were so popular with the railroad officials, Rice went to the leading manufacturers to have some built. He found they were glad to get his contract. After making arrangements at considerable trouble and expense to build him the cars, they telegraphed him that they had to give it up. Bankers, who had promised to advance them money on the security of the cars, backed out "on account of some supposed controversy which they claim you have had with the Standard Oil Company and various railroads in the West. They feared you could not use these cars to advantage if the railroads should be hostile to your interests."[420]
Through the all-pervading system of espionage, to which cities[421] as well as individuals were subject, his plans had been discovered and thwarted. The espionage over shipments provided for by the South Improvement scheme has now extended to business between manufacturer and manufacturer. Why should it stop at unsealing private correspondence in the post-office in the European style, and making its contents known to those who need the information for the protection of their rights to the control of the markets?
Rice, who was nothing if not indomitable, finally got ten cars from the Harrisburg works. But this supply was entirely inadequate, and he had to continue doing the bulk of his business in barrels. What a devil's tattoo the railroad men beat on these barrels of his! They made him pay full tariff rates on every pound weight of the oil and of the barrel, but they hauled free the iron tanks, which were the barrels of his rivals, and also gave them free the use of the flat-cars on which the tanks were carried.[422] Hauling the tanks free, on trucks furnished free, was not enough. The railroads hauled free of all charge a large part, often more than half, of the oil put into the tanks. In the exact phrase of the Interstate Commerce Commission, they made out their bills for freight to the oil combination "regardless of quantity." This is called "blind-billing."