ties in the desert. It will scarcely be
claimed even by railroad managers that their policy of thus arbitrarily
regulating commerce originated in philanthropic motives. They are forced
to admit that it grew out of an attempt to increase the income of
railroads by the extension of favors to naturally weak enterprises and
to recoup by overtaxing stronger ones.

The practical operation of this system soon showed to railroad managers
their power and to the patrons of railroads their dependence upon those
who dispensed railroad favors. The former soon discovered that their
power might be used to further their private interests as well as those
of the roads, and unscrupulous patrons were not slow to offer
considerations for favors which they coveted. When such favors were once
granted by the officials of one road, rival roads would grant similar
ones in self-protection. Thus this vicious system grew until the payment
of a regular tariff rate was rather the exception than the rule, and
special rates became an indispensable condition of success in business.

We may distinguish three classes of railroad discriminations, viz.:

1. Those which affect certain individuals.

2. Those which affect certain localities.

3. Those which affect certain branches of business.

Discrimination between individuals is the most objectionable, because it
is the most demoralizing of all. Where such discrimination obtains,
every shipper is in the power of the railroad corporation. It makes of
independent citizens of a free country fawning parasites and obsequious
sycophants who accept favors from railroad managers and in return do
their bidding, however humiliating this may be. The shipper, realizing
that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical
expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, all
self-esteem in his efforts to propitiate an overbearing master. He is
intimidated to such an extent that he never speaks openly of existing
abuses, lest he lose the special rates which have been given him, or, if
he is not a participant of such privileges, lest additional favors be
given to his rivals and they be thus enabled to crush him. Intimidation
of shippers prevailed to such an extent previous to the enactment of the
Interstate Commerce Law that when, in 1879, the special committee on
railroads appointed by the legislature of New York invited all persons
having grievances against railroads to come be