The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-12-01
Financial Giants Who Control the
Trunk Line Roads
Agree Upon a Plan TO Prevent Any Rate
Disturbances In the Future.
Under the New Deal It Is Said the
Roads Will be Able to Get
Around the Law Against Pools,
and Yet Accomplish All of the
Purposes of a Pool, and Enable
Them to Secure Profitable Rates
to All Interested Companies.

Purposes of q Pool, and Enable
Them to Secure Profitable Rates
to All Interested Companies.
NEW YORK, Nov. 30.-The Herald
says:
Quietly but surely there has been
built up by the financial giants VINO
control the trunk line railroads a trafnc
deal which will be able to get around
the law against pools and yet accom-
plish all of the purposes of a pool and
enable them to secure profitable rates
to all of the interested companies.
1t was the knowledge that this traffic
deal is about to- be put into operation,
and the fact that the Baltimore ana
Ohio was to be operated in harmony
with Pennsylvania and New York Cen
trail interests, that gave rise to the
report that the first-named company
had been acquired by the Pennsylvania
Railroad.
Denials are made that the Baltimore
and Ohio has been acquired by either
of it's competitors, but it is understood
that the management of the Baltimore
and Ohio has reached an understand
ing with the financiers who control the
Pennsylvania and the Central to
handle all traffic impartially and
henceforth not to permit any rate dis
turbances to influence them.
The Erie, Delaware, Lackawanna and
Western, Ontario and Western, Read
ing, Lehigh Valley, New Jersey Cen
trail and Chesapeake and Ohio are all
controlled in the interest of Messrs-
Morgan and Vanderbilt. and there is
no danger of disturbance from these
companies Rapid strides have been
made in arranging details of the big
purposes is to be a pool of the most
ironclad character, but regulated by
coterie of financiers, not by traffic Of
ficials.
On January LIST more than 80 per
cent. of all of the commodity tariffs
will be abolished, and in addition there
will be some significant advances in
freight rates. On that date there will
also be a readjustment of the import
business which will put an end to the
disturbance of international rates and
prevent steamship companies from de-
moralizing the railroad rates.
After January LIST the percentages
now carried by the several trunk lines
will be lived UP to more strictly than
ever before, and all agents and traffic
managers will be held to strict &C
count for cutting rates. These rules
apply to west-bound freight business,
and for some time agents have been
u,orLfpo ,1nIpr irictr11otiOnS NOT RI do
viate from the existing tariffs on any
account whatever.
Among the significant advances in
rates on January LIST will be those on
sugar and coffee, the former of which
constitutes one of the largest articles
of freight shipped out of New York.
For a long time the sugar men have
been credited with ability to secure
favors from the railroads in the shape
of commodity rates. The advances on
sugar and coffee will amount to 40 per
cent of the present rate. The actual
change will consist in raising the classl-
fication of those articles from sixth to
fifth class, making the rate 30 instead
of % cents from New York to Chicago.
AS showing how far the trunk line
railroads have already engaged in pool
ing without being disturbed by the au-
thorities mention may be made Of the
fact that the grain traffic coming to
Buffalo and brought to the seaboard by
the railroads has been pooled for some
time past, and the anthracite coal trade
is also pooled by the several compan-
les. The trunk line railroads control
all of the important lines of the steam
ers on the Great Lakes. and the lake
lines in turn operate canal and lake
lines.
1t is not generally known that the
bulk of the west-bOund canal and lake
business is controlled by the lake lines,
and that during the last season it has
been impossible for any independent
boatman to cut rates and make any
thing out of the business. The reason
of this is that if an Independent boat
man reduced the through rate, the lake
lines with whom he dealt would charge
him an exorbitant sum on the amount
of their haul at the western end. Many
of the boatmen, rather than submit to
such dictation, leased their boats to the
canal and dispatch lines at so much
per trip. The result was that the canal
and lake rate was kept up to higher
figure than the railroads quoted in con-
nection with the lake steamers This
gave the railroads the control of the
entire lake traffic. The canal route was
kept at about 80 cents throughout the
season.
With the grain traffic, anthracite coal
traffic and canal and lake traffic under
the domination of the trunk lines, and
with three or four financiers in control
Of the entire trunk line situation, the
way is now clear for regulating all of
the freight business on the Eastern
roads.
The men who have this scheme in
hand foresee possibility of efforts on
the part of the authorities to make
trouble and to charge them with violat-
ing the antitrust law on the ground of
running a pool. They will be prepared
for this in more ways than one. In
the first place they will hold that no
traffic association exists among the
trunk lines, and they viii defy the au-
thorities to find one.
Hence, they will say, there is no out
ward signs of a pool. The steps which
have just been taken to destroy signs
of pooling are significant The COM
mittee of the Joint Traffic Association,