Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-04-23
.DEPEW' CONFESSION.
TRUSTS ARE BUILT UP BY DIS
ELIMINATION.
Bos MJnopolist Depew's rreNi:Ses Arc,
of Course. Right, hut His Conclusions
In, Faulty -1he Populist Solution of
the Question.

Chauncey NJ. Depew, general man
ager of the Vanderbilt railroad inttN-
este, "a discussing the recent Supreme
Court decision against railroad pools.
! freely admits that the trusts which
| control the markets and factories OF
| this country owe their power to lille
| gal determinations in freight rates
| for the benefit of large concerns and
| against their small competitors. He
, makes the absurd claim that this dis
elimination would be done away with
if all OF the railroads of the country
were allowed to enter a pool or trust
with one general management. But
hear Mr.. Depew:
THE smaller shippers and the ship
| pers who arc confined to the other
lines pay the usual tariff for the car
! rage of their traffic The result is that
the big shippers on the weak line have
an advantage of discriminating
freight rate in their favor under the
law. The rate makes them stronger,
and | have known it to give to one
concern the whole OF the business in
that product. In other words, the
freight rate has made trust.
81 will give an instance. When the
interstate commerce law went into ef-
feet we formed this association for the
purpose of carrying into effect the in
terstate commerce law, which said that
there should be equal uniform rates to
everybody and reasonable ones. Now,
there never has been any complaint by
shippers against the rates in the Joint
Traffic Association since it was formed.
whenever we have presented pool
bill at Washington---we presented one
three years ago-tfrere Is curious
partnership to fight it. The partner
ship is between the manager of the
trust and the populist.
"The PoruIist fights 1t because he
doesn't know anything about the
transportation business. The manager
of the trust fights it because he knows
all about transportation,
"The populjSt comes to me and says,
Mr. Depew, J asp going to fight you
because yea IRE trying to form great
railway pool, which is great railroad
trust and be honestly believes it.
THE manager of the great trust,
however, says to me, 'Depew, am
going to beat your pool bill because if
you get pool bill then you railroads
will agree with one another, so that
everybody who starts in this business
which l now control can get the same
rates / do, and that will break us up af-
ter while. That is our strong point.
We can get rates, because we ship
heavily, that the general public can't
GET
When we formed this association
the rates were agreed upon that should
be charged on west-bound freight from
New York. That means high-class
goods to merchants. One of the great
merchants of the west promptly said:
I never have paid within 25 cents a
hundred of tariff rates, and won't do
it now His business was on what we
call one of the weak lines. He took it
OFF that line and put it on one of the
strongest lines. That left the weak
line without any west-b bound business
If there had been a pool we could
have transferred to that line enough
west-bound business to compensate it,
or we could have given it money
enough to make up the loss"
1t is doubtless true that the trusts.
rs we'll as all other interests except the
railroad interests, are opposed to rail-
road pooling; but that does not prove
Mr.. Depew's contention that the pop
ulists, in opposing railroad trust, are
working in the interest of other trusts.
The great trusts of the country will al
ways have a sufficient hold upon the
railroads to obtain for themselves spe-
cial rates; but if the railroads were all
under one management that manage
ment would extort more from the big
trusts, more from their small competi-
tors and more from everybody else
than at present. Thus the trusts would
be hampered in business and would
make less money, but their small COM
petitors would be still worse hampercd
and the trusts would remain as fully in
control of the markets as ever.
Mr.. Depew is an. able confuser of
fact and falsehood, but he will have to
be more adroit than this If he is to
muddle the populists.