Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-07-10
THE RATE

PROCEEDINGS Before the United States Sem
ste Committee on Interstate Com
mcroe.
CHICAGO, Jtne 16.-Mr. O.. j.. Martin,
WHO attends to the transportation business
Of Z. d. Armour & Co., packers, was be-
fore the Senate Committee Oh Inter State
Commerce yesterday morning. He said
that arbitration invariably went against the
shipper. Live hogs were carried to the
seaboard at the same tariff rate as pro-
visions. The shippers claimed that
this should not be, rs they had to
pay freight on packages and salt amounting
to twenty-five per cent. This placed
the Chicago packers at a disadvantage as
compared with Boston and Southern pack
ers. He presented a petition to the pool,
setting forth these wrongs, but it was
shelved. The charges on live hogs We're
too low. He did not sec how the compa-
MES made any money at the stock yards
along the routes. When the hand of tho
pool was of, as it was to-day, the matter
remedied itself and rates reverted back to
q sound basis. The dressed sheep rate
was ninety-five cents against fifty cents for
live sheep. The roads do this because they
will get the business anyway. Meats
shipped in refrigerator cars were confined
to particular roads, because they had to
have ice stations for refilling the cars at
different stages along the roads. The
roads claimed that the excessive weight
of the refrigerator cars made it
necessary for them to make extra
charges. The companies were perfectly
froo Tn I,co rofriporafor oorS for rafurN
freight. He thought there should be
some supervision of the law of Inter-
State commerce and some appeal out
side of railroad men. If the railroads pay
a shipper the amount his business was
worth to them over another mans business
inlthe way of rebates it would do nc harm,
but a system of rebates that would build up
one mans business at the expense Of
another's would eventually work general
havoc.
Mr.. II. r. Hobart, editor Of the Ratlpay
Age, said that there were 1913, 500 miles Of
railways in the country, the capital stock
outstanding of which wa S3,S56, 000, 600,
and the bonded debt 49, 39, DOC, 600, maxi
Ing a total Investment of 1885,
coo, 900. These roads employed 1885,
600 persons, giving support to 5000, 600.
The roads were i'll a very precarious con-
dition. About 10 per cent. of them had
been sold under foreclosure, the result of
which was to wipe out the capital and
bonded indebtedness of these roads. 1t was
the railroads and not the public that now
required protection.
At this point in the proceedings a depu.
tation of the Milwaukee Chamber of Com
merce, headed by Mr.. Charles A. Chaplin,
acting President, and consisting OF
Robert Eliot, Edward Sanderson, Charles
Ray, I. Fl. Lowry, E. P. Bacon and j. b.
Merrill, were introduced.
Mr.. Chaplin said that his experience was
that many railroads made a practice of Civ
ing ''rebate rates. rather than straight
FLAT rates. for the simple purpose of get
ting into their hands funds of shippers
which they might retain for a while, which
was reslly floating Indebtedness, but
which never showed up in the rail
road statements, as each road had thou
sands and some of them tens of thou
sands of shippers. If rebates even to small
amounts were retained by the roads UNI
justly the aggregate would amount to mill
ions. The witness declared that in two
shipments he had tied up S1,1OO. The
shipments had been made over a year ago,
and the result had been that these two cor
porations had really made forced loans ag.
S1CSdGluS p1,1UU 11OLu Ulc WltlcbS, dllu liz
did not know yet when he would get his
money.
E. p. Bacon, of Milwaukee, thought
water-routes should be fostered by the Gov
eminent, as they reduced rates and thereby
proved a benefit to the community. Charles
Ray, John B. Merrill and I. II. Lowry, of
Milwaukee, also favored the commission
with their views. After listening to the
opinions of Mr.. w. J. Pope, member of a
prominent commission firm. the committee
adjourned.