reflect that five cents per one hundred pounds is an enormous profit
on corn that the grower has sold at from eighteen to twenty-two cents
per one hundred pounds, and that such a margin would tend to drive
every one but the railway officials and their secret partners out of
the trade, as has practically been the case on many western roads.
Doubtless such rates are sometimes made in order to take the commodity
over a certain line, and there is no divide with the officials; but
the effect upon the competitors of the favored shipper and the public
is none the less injurious, and such practices would not obtain under
national ownership, when railway users would be treated with honesty
and impartiality, which the experience of half a century shows to be
impossible with corporate ownership.

Referring to the rate question in their last report, the Interstate
Commerce Commission says: "If we go no farther than the railroad
managers themselves for information, we shall not find that it is
claimed that railroad service, as a whole, is conducted without unjust
discriminations."

"If rates are secretly cut, or if rebates are given to large shippers,
the fact of itself shows the rates which are charged to the general
public are unreasonable, for they are necessarily made higher than
they ought to be in order to provide for the cut or to pay the
rebate."

"If the carrier habitually carries a great number of people free, its
regular rates are made the higher to cover the cost; if heavy
commissions are paid for obtaining business, the rates are made the
higher that the net revenues may not suffer in consequence; if
scalpers are directly or indirectly supported by the railroad
companies, the general public refunds to the companies what the
support costs."

The Commission quotes a Chicago railway manager as saying: "Rates are
absolutely demoralized and neither shippers, passengers, railways, or
the public in general make anything by this state of affairs. Take
passenger rates for instance; they are very low; but who benefits by
the reduction? No one but the scalpers.... In freight matters the case
is just the same. Certain shippers are allowed heavy rebates, while
others are made to pay full rates.... The management is dishonest on
all sides, and there is not a road in the country that can be accused
of living up to the interstate law. Of course when some poor devil
comes along and wants a pass to save him from starvation, he has