OTHER PLACE DISCRIMINATIONS.
There are multitudes of other place discriminations besides those
related to the long and short haul question. The Business Men’s League
of St. Louis and the St. Louis Merchants Exchange complain of serious
discrimination against their city as compared with Chicago, Kansas City,
Omaha, etc., in rates on corn, wheat, oats, groceries, hardware, and
cotton.[319] Des Moines gets supplies from Chicago at 60 cents, while
Fort Dodge, the same distance from Chicago, pays 72 cents.[320] Shoe
manufacturers and wholesale grocers of Atlanta who have had to close
down declare they were ruined by discriminative freight rates. Two years
ago a prohibitive rate was put on cotton bound for Atlanta, but the
freight agents of the leading railroads entering the city were indicted
by the Federal grand jury and the rate was withdrawn. Mobile complains
of loss of business because of discriminations in favor of New Orleans
on one side and Pensacola on the other. The Fort Wayne Commercial Club
complains of discrimination in rates, demurrage, switching, supply of
cars, etc. The lumber rate to Boston from points in West Virginia on the
Norfolk and Western is 29½ cents, while points on the B. & O. and
Chesapeake and Ohio in the same State and the same distance from Boston
have a rate of 23½ cents.[321] The Pennsylvania Railroad taking lumber
to points on the Long Branch Railroad made the rates by adding to the
New York rate an arbitrary charge of 5 cents a hundred lbs. if the
lumber came from Saginaw, Mich., but only 2 cents if the shipping point
was Buffalo; held an unlawful discrimination.[322]
Even so important a city as Philadelphia has had serious complaints to
make at times of the favoritism shown New York by sending many of the
best trains from Washington north through Philadelphia without running
into Broad Street Station, but stopping only at West Philadelphia, and
by arranging excursion tickets so that southern buyers would go to New
York instead of Philadelphia.[323]
In June, 1905, the New Haven and Hartford notified connecting lines that
it would not receive any further shipments of coal for delivery east of
the Connecticut River or north of Hartford after August 31. Such an
order constitutes a compound discrimination against certain localities
and a specific commodity.
The whole of New England suffers from a discrimination of about 100
percent in freight rates, the average rate in New England being about
double the average for the United States. Quoting my testimony before
the United States Industrial Commission: “Another phase of
discrimination was brought out very prominently in our studies in New
England, and the best source of information, perhaps, is the report made
by the Massachusetts Railroad Commission a few years ago (1894), in
which they compared the average freight rate on New England roads,
individual roads, and the average of all the roads there, showing that
our rates were about double the average freight rate in the Middle
States, or in the Middle West, and that it was clearly double what the
average freight rate was for the whole United States, and they argued
with much force that it was really a discrimination against New England
as a whole, especially against Boston. One of the pleas put forward in
discussing the question of leasing the Boston and Albany was that the
giving over of the Boston and Albany to the New York Central control
would intensify instead of relieve that sectional discrimination against
New England as a whole, because the road would come under the control of
those interested chiefly in the development of New York City, and not in
the development of Boston and the New England States.”[324]
In the Cincinnati Maximum Rate Case, involving a large number of
railways and steamship lines, the Commission found discrimination
between the rates from the eastern seaboard and central territory to
southern points, and fixed a schedule of maximum rates from Cincinnati
and Chicago to Knoxville, Chattanooga, Rome, Atlanta, Meridian,
Birmingham, Anniston, and Selma, and required the railroads to revise
their rates to other points in the South in conformity with the
provisions of the order.[325] On appeal to the Supreme Court it was held
that the order could not be enforced against the railroads, it being the
opinion of the majority of the court that the Interstate Act does not
give the Commission power to fix rates, such power not being expressly
conferred and being too great to be implied from the prohibition of
unreasonable rates and the general authority given the Commission to
enforce the law,[326] so that the discrimination the Commission sought
to abolish between different sections of the country is still in
operation.
Sectional discrimination, either intentional or unintentional, is bad
enough, but there is a still wider and more objectionable form of
discrimination as between the country and the big cities. The whole
inland territory is made tributary to a few competing points.
As Hadley says: “The points where there is no competition are made to
pay the fixed charges.”[327] The railroads make whatever rates are
necessary to get business on the through routes, and compel the rural
districts to pay rates high enough to make up for the low rates on
through traffic. In many cases local rates in country districts are
almost as high as they were in the old stage-coach days. Senator
Dolliver suggests that every village and interior community in the
United States has a grievance against the railways on account of
discrimination against them in favor of the large centres.[328] Every
small town, and every small shipper and every farmer has to pay tribute
to the big cities. The effect is to build up the cities in wealth and
population at the expense of the country. For example, while
Indianapolis increased by 32,389 inhabitants from 1880 to 1890, 49
counties remained stationary, and 21 counties lost. So Detroit grew
greatly, while 20 counties in the State, nearly all the counties in
Southern Michigan, lost population. “It is manifest that the railroads
are greatly aiding the cities in drawing to themselves the best and the
worst from the country, and every moment are increasing the magnitude of
the municipal problem.”[329]
Mr. Alexander says that the railways should have credit for decreasing
the discriminations made by nature. “Thirty years ago it cost over a
dollar a pound to carry from New York machinery and tools to work the
mines of Utah, and the trip consumed the whole summer, during which the
purchaser lost the use of his money. Now the trip requires but two weeks
or less, and the rate is about two cents. Comparing these rates, and
considering the character of the present service as compared with the
old, it is not an exaggeration to say that the railroads have removed
about ninety-nine one-hundredths of the discrimination against Utah
which nature ordained in surrounding her with deserts and
mountains.”[330]
It is true that the railways have greatly reduced the obstacles of
nature, but it is also true that they have used their power of reduction
unequally, arbitrarily, and unjustly. The discriminations of nature have
not the quality of justice or injustice that attaches to discrimination
by human agencies. In the exercise of the function of removing the
difficulties of nature the common carrier must be impartial.