sary to get that business amounted almost to
compulsion. Without it, not the particular official only, but his
company, would be extinguished. The situation was further aggravated by
the fact that the goods that were to be carried were largely staples
shipped in large quantities by individual shippers--millers, owners of
packing houses, mining companies from the one end, and coal and oil
companies from the other. One of these companies might be able to offer
a railway more business in the course of a year than it could hope to
get from all the small traders on its lines combined--enough to amount
almost to affluence if it could be secured at the regularly authorised
rates. The keenness of the competition to secure the patronage of these
large shippers can be imagined; for it was, between the companies, a
struggle for actual existence. All that the shipper had to do was to
wait while the companies underbid each other, each in turn cutting off a
slice from the margin of profit that would result from the carrying of
the traffic until, not infrequently and in some notorious cases, not
only was that margin entirely whittled away but the traffic was finally
carried at a figure which meant a heavy loss to the carrier. The extent
to which the Standard Oil Company has profited by this necessity on the
part of the railways to get the business of a large shipping concern at
almost any price, rather than allow its cars and motive power to remain
idle, has been made sufficiently public.

In some measure the companies were able to protect themselves by the
making of pooling (or joint-purse) arrangements between themselves; but
the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Law in 1887 made pooling
illegal. The companies endeavoured to frame agreements which would not
be repugnant to the law but would take the place of the pools; but it
was impossible to attach any penalties to infringements of such
agreements and under pressure of the necessity of self-preservation, no
agreement, however solemnly entered into, was strong enough to restrain
the parties. The Passenger Agents framed agreements to control the
passenger traffic and the Freight Agents made agreements to control the
goods traffic, and both were equally futile. Then the Traffic Managers
made agreements to cover both classes of business, which held no longer
than the others. So the General Managers tried their hands. But the
inexorable exigencies of the situation remained. Each offi