The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-11-27
President Ripley of the Santa
Fe on Pooling.
EmphaticaIIy In Favor OF This
System of Maintaining Rates.
CONDITIONS UNJUST.
Declares Attitude of Public To-
wards Railroads Is Dishonest.
Says the Government Should
Do One of Three Things.

President E. p. Ripley of the Santa
F'e has submitted to the congressional
committee a reply to the statements
made before the committee last week
by Geo. F. Stone, secretary of the Chi
cago board of trade. Mr.. Stone bitterly
attacked railway pooling. In his reply
President Ripley says:
The statement that rates in this
country ever We're or ever can be. too
high per Sc, is absolutely without found
alton The service performed by Amer
lean railroads is admittedly the cheap
est in the world, as well the best,
and no pool, however restrictive, can
change the general laws of competition.
No greater economic blunder can be
committed than the fostering of free
and unrestricted ggrandizement of the
few and the submerging of the many,
and that portion of the interstate law
which so unwisely prohibits pooling has
done more to concentrate business in
few hands and to drive out the small
trader than could have been accom-
plished in century of the old meth
DDS.
zone of the ablest of the interstate
commissioners has said that the prohi-
bition of pooling defeats the whole pur-
pose of the law; that the law pre-
scribes uniform rates, and fOrbids the
only known plan by which rates can
be kept uniform.
THE fact is that the commercial
world does not accept, never has, and
pfODaDly never Will accept, the equal
rate theory. 1t is just what the rail-
roads want, but what the large ship
per does not want; he will theOriZe that
equal rates are best for all, but in his
/ heart and in his practice ne believes
himself entitled to lower rates than his
neighbOr or less capital or less enter
prise Believing this, he is actively en-
gagged in finding ways to evade the law,
and it would be surprising indeed if he
failed to succeed. The law can no more
be enforced than the prohibitory laws,
| which have so cOnSpicuOusly failed.
You may close the front door of the
saloon, but those who are determined
to get in will do so.
But the underlying fal1acy of all this
talk about trusts and monopolies as ap-
piled to railroad pooling is the failure
to differentiate between the railroad in
dustry of the country and other purely
commercial enterprises The demand of
the railroads, that they be permitted to
charge reasonable rates-and nothing
more has been asked-is treated as if
it were on a parity with a demand for
the legalization of a trust in any article
of merchandise 1t is argued that to
do this is to establish a dangerous pre-
cedent, apparently forgetfuI of the fact
that this country has never assumed to
dictate or TO regulate the price OF any
commodity except railroad transpOrta-
tiOns, as to which it has assumed both
by state and national laws to fix prices.
1t certainly would appear to a rea-
SonabIy fa1r-m1nded man that when
the supreme authority undertakes to
limit the revenues of a private cOrpor-
alton it owes that corporation some
4 thing in the way OF protection. AS
matters now stand the railroads are
limited in charges, forced to compete
and forbidden to combine for protec-
ton, though all the world NAV COM
bine against them. 1t is considered
legitimate and praisewOrthy for the
employees of the railroads to combine
to force up wages, and a crime for the
railroad to combine to maintain the
rates which the government holds to be
reasonable. ,.Could injustice go furth-
er? No such restrictions are put upon
any other business in this country and
no such restrictions are imposed upon
railroads in any other country.
ITO ask for permission to pool earn
ingS is a very modest request under
the circumstances; the roads might
Well ask for more, as, for instance, laws
prohibiting the building of unnecessary
roads and confirming each existing line
in the sole occupancy Of its territory.
such laws exist in other countries,
and are wholly reasonable and proper
! if the railroad is to be considered as a
public or quasi public institution. In
short, the whole attitude of the Ameri-
can people toward the railroad indus
try is inconsistent and dishonest. they
are considered as public institutions to
the extent that their users are to limit
their rates, but their owners are to pay
their bills. They are taxed more heaV-
lily than any other interest, and ac-
corded nothing in return except the So
being interpreted, means that they can
force q man to sell his property at two
| or three times its value. and even this
is nothing for which they have to
thank the public, since it is a neces-
sary concomitant to the building of
railroads, which the public must have
To conclude: The permission to
pool is asked for. not as a favor, but as
a right-as being not a cure-aH, but as
the best known remedy for discrimi-
nation as between individuals and To-
calities, which is today and always has
been the worst and practically the only
evil with which the American railroad
system can be charged, either as to
present or past practice. An evil which
can never be removed by laws how
ever drastic, but which can be largely
done away with by removing all incen-
tive to it.
Let the government do one of three
things, namely: First, remove all re-
strictions and turn the railroads loose
Second. accord them that protection to
which they are justly entitled. Third,
buy them.
The railroads are entitled in all
fairness and justice to ask that ones of
these three courses be pursued The
present mixture of all the objectiona-
bic features of three is unjust to the
last degree
NEW LIFTING MACHINE